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I learn a lot by listening to NPR, but today was something new, when they highlighted a new reason to wear bicycle helmets -- the common bear/bicycle wreck.
In Montana this week, a middle school teacher was bicycling down the road at 25 miles per hour when he came to a rise and spotted a black bear 10 feet in front of him. Unable to stop, he T-boned the bear. The cyclist and the bear tumbled together, with the bear eventually landing on the cyclist's head before scampering off. Because the man was wearing his bicycle helmet (and because teaching middle school students might be good training for tangling with bears), the cyclist sustained only minor scratches.
Weird, right? Maybe not. Almost a year ago to the day, a bicycle helmet saved the life of another cyclist tangling with a bear. Last September, a man was mountain biking with his dogs. The dogs, who were running ahead, started barking. The man, worried that the dogs were barking at another cyclist, got off his bike and went to help. Shortly after he got off his bike, he saw the bear and was attacked. The man sustained some pretty bad injuries --- he had serious bite marks on his shoulder, bicep, and chest, and scratches on his face. But it wasn't as bad as it could have been. You see, the bear tried to bite the man's head, but instead got a mouthful of bicycle helmet. The cyclist thinks that the helmet saved his life.
So the next time you or your kids are thinking about not wearing a helment, remember the bears. And I might warn Lance the next time I see him in the halls at our kids' school.
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