WESTFIELD — Over the summer, Westfield Middle School Principal Jesse McMillan had a personal scare. His 5-year-old daughter Madelyn had just learned to ride her bike without training wheels, which she had been successfully doing for two weeks, when she had a bad fall.
“When the accident happened, she was riding at a slower rate of speed,” McMillan said. The family was walking beside her when she put her foot down and missed the pedal. “She went down, and hit smack dab in the middle of her forehead,” he said.
Madelyn was wearing a helmet, which Jesse thought was on correctly, but it was not fastened tightly enough and shifted during the fall. He said she immediately developed a baseball-sized egg on her head, and they took her to the emergency room, where she was admitted for a CT scan.
Jesse said it was a frightening experience. “Especially when you walk into a completely filled emergency room with 20 people waiting, and the doctors brought her right in; tells you how significant a head injury is,” he said. Fortunately, there was no brain bleed or skull fracture — something the doctors were concerned about — but she did have a concussion.
McMillan said his daughter is doing well now but still has a tiny, raised bump that, depending on the outside temperature, will be more pronounced than on other days. “Here we are over a month later, and there’s still something there,” he said.
After the accident, McMillan knew that he needed to strengthen the bike helmet requirement at Westfield Middle School. He said that on any given day at the school of 700 students, 50 ride their bikes to school. Helmets are required to be worn to and from school, but previously the administration and staff would gently remind students about helmet use.
“I felt the need to strengthen it even more,” McMillan said. “Our students do get into accidents; things happen outside of school. Without that properly designed helmet, that can be devastating. I want to make sure the helmets are properly secured, fit properly and are buckled.”
Moving forward, McMillan said the expectation at WMS is that students riding to and from school will wear helmets at all times. He said a student not wearing a helmet will not be allowed to ride home and their family will be called.
“It’s not about punishment. I feel the need to strengthen the response; otherwise, it won’t change,” he said. “Beyond that is education. We’re very well aware of the fact that students could put the helmet on and go around the corner and take it off.”
McMillan said that if the barrier to wearing a helmet is the cost, he will provide one. He is currently looking into different programs, such as BFAIR, a Western Mass non-profit that offers helmet distribution, and the state’s Mass Safe Routes to Schools, which he said offers many resources, curriculum and assemblies. “We include bike safety as a topic in our assemblies. I want to create a little more of a robust approach, especially with students riding e-bikes to school.”
After posting this message on Facebook, several people reached out offering to donate helmets to the school. McMillan said that if community members or families would like to donate a new, packaged bicycle helmet, they can drop it off at the WMS office at 30 West Silver St.
McMillan said he thought deeply about the messaging around the new requirements, which are in the school handbook. The handbook is subject to approval by the School Committee on Aug. 24. He believes that sharing his family’s experience would have a stronger impact than just saying there’s a new rule about bikes. “Sharing the why, knowing our family has had our own experience with our daughter,” he said.