Gray Matters Takes on Vital Community Role of Protecting Brains
For a decade now, Gray Matters has been protecting kids’ heads and spreading the word about traumatic brain injury throughout the community. It’s impossible to say how many children’s brains have benefited. But we can say with certainty that more of them now wear helmets – and that Gray Matters has played a major role.
This region’s children are well above average on the activity scale. While that keeps them fit, some activities can expose them to risk. Gray Matters was created in February 2009 when Dr. Mark Stern, Trauma Medical Director at Mercy Regional Medical Center, saw one too many avoidable head injuries from kids skateboarding, skiing, or bicycling.
He asked Mercy Health Foundation for help in fixing this problem. The solution was to fund helmets for kids who can’t afford them, and to educate the public about the need for wearing a helmet. Gray matter, you may know, is that valuable squishy stuff inside your skull that controls your central nervous system.
Since 2015 the Gray Matters program has been run by the energetic Amy Haggart, a long-time outdoor adventure education teacher and former director of DEVO, a Durango-based mountain bike program for youths. Haggart is now Community Outreach Coordinator for Mercy’s Marketing Department. With Gray Matters, Haggart has not only delivered helmets to children around the region, but has tirelessly talked about why it’s important to protect that gray matter.
And she has made it fun.
Much of her Gray Matters time is spent visiting schools, talking to kids about the brain and fitting helmets on individual heads.
Risk Management
Risk-taking is not just extreme sports on Red Bull commercials. “It’s how we grow as people,” Haggart says. It can be very simple – whatever takes you out of your comfort zone, which can be something as basic as going for a 10-minute run or talking in front of an audience. When it comes to sports, wearing a helmet or other protective gear is an action that lowers the calculated risk. That action, in turn, reduces injury risk, and empowers people to make healthy choices that lead to a long, active life.
On school visits, Haggart brings along a model brain so kids can see how soft and vulnerable it is. She explains which part of the brain controls various functions. And then she demonstrates what happens when a concussion muddles those functions.
In one game, students don “concussion goggles,” which distort the vision, and then compete in relay races in which they have to put brain balls in a bucket. In another game, using bulky “concussion gloves,” students attempt to take pinto beans out of a bucket. These games simulate how simple tasks become difficult or impossible using a concussed brain.
Between Haggart’s short talk and the games, kids make the connection that their brain might malfunction after a concussion or traumatic brain injury; coordination, eyesight, language skills, and memory problems may occur.
At that point they’re ready for the helmet, which, she explains, dissipates the force of an impact by lengthening the period in which the head is suddenly brought to a halt. Haggart spends a good deal of time fitting each individual helmet.
During 2018, by going to schools, health fairs, and other events, the Gray Matters program reached 14,000 people in the region (Pagosa Springs, Ignacio, Bayfield, Durango, Cortez, Mancos, Dolores, and into New Mexico), and gave away 500 helmets to youths.
You try to coach them wisely, but kids are going to take risks. Gray Matters helps them do it safely.
To Donate:
Donations to Gray Matters through Mercy Hospital Foundation fund helmets and educational materials.
