Aug 16, 2008 9:35 pm US/Mountain
Pay It 4Ward Project Focuses on Bike Safety
Written by CBS4 special projects producer Libby Smith
COMMERCE CITY, Colo. (CBS4) ―
At Hanson School in Commerce City the students are getting a valuable lesson, not from a teacher, but from a student.
"As you may or may not know, I was involved in a serious bicycle accident," 13-year-old Dartagnan Dye told is classmates.
The accident was very serious. On June 17, Dye set out on his bike to go see a friend. Along the way he was hit by a truck. Dye was not wearing a helmet. He suffered four fractures to his skull along with neck, back and leg injuries. He was in a coma for a week and in the hospital for a week. The fact that he's back in school just two months later is remarkable.
"I'm doing really good. I have pains in my neck and legs are sore," Dye told CBS4.
He says he's learned a valuable lesson about wearing a helmet.
"I didn't want to put on my helmet because I didn't think it looked good, but now I don't care how it looks," Dye said.
Dye hasn't been on a bike since the accident. Now he's teaming up with a CBS4 viewer to make sure his classmates are safe when they ride their bikes.
"It's very important to me to see children wear helmets and I wanted to do something about it after Dartagnan was hit," Kerrynn Kraft told CBS4.
Kraft contacted CBS4 asking for $1,000 to buy helmets for the kids in Commerce City. She hopes to start a non-profit organization and expand her effort of giving out helmets.
"I want to see that all children have helmets. I know there are children out there who can't afford helmets, and so I want to see as many children get helmets as can," Kraft said.
With her $1,000 and a discount from Golden Bike Shop, she was able to buy 57 bike helmets. Then she took them to a local tattoo shop, Sinfulltration, to get them decorated. She hoped that if the kids thought they were cool, they would wear them.
But it's Dye's story that really hits home with the 8th grade class at Hanson School.
"What happened to Dar, I'm afraid that could happen to me," one student said.
The students missed an hour of traditional teaching, but got a far greater lesson in life and survival taught by one of their peers who nearly didn't survive.
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