UofL Health donates bike helmets to Kentucky Refugee Ministries clients

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - A generous donation from UofL Health will go to help promote bike riding safety as helmets were donated to members of the Kentucky Refugee Ministries Thursday afternoon.

With March being Traumatic Brain Injury Awareness Month, UofL Health’s neurosurgery and physical medicine and rehabilitation teams donated 40 bike helmets to KRM’s clients.

A majority of the clients from the non-profit group, whose goal is to help support refugee and migrant clients finding them a new home and employment, ride their bicycles to get to and from their jobs. Staff at UofL Health wanted to ensure the clients had proper safety gear.

“About 80 to 90 thousand people go to the ER with a brain injury from a bike accident a year, and that’s nationwide, and we’d like to know for people wearing a bike helmet that it does cut your risk of having a brain injury about in half,” Dr. Sarah Wagers, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Doctor with UofL Health said. “So it’s very important to wear the helmets especially when you’re out on the roads.”

One of the former clients of the ministries, Daynier Aden, now works with KRM and said the donation is very important as many prefer to get jobs near where they live. He said biking is many clients’ preferred mode of transportation to and from work.

“They bike to work, they bike to social events, they bike to come here, and a lot of times it’s not the safest way,” Aden said. “Safety and that kind of thing is things in our country we start to really learn about once we come here. And sometimes we have clients that injure themselves precisely because they don’t understand that. So it’s very important.”

KRM also partners with Beargrass Christian Church’s Pedal Power Project that provides refurbished and rebuilt bikes to members in need in the Louisville community.