Several years ago, the neurosurgeons in our country were frustrated because they had all these young people coming into their emergency rooms with very, serious injuries, and they didn't have any cures Realizing that they couldn't fix the problem, they would explore how to keep these injuries from happening in the first place. They started this injury prevention education program, called ThinkFirst, and started going to schools to help people learn how to protect themselves from injury. There are now chapters all over the country, and several other countries, talking to kids at schools. We feel if you understand how these injuries occur and how life altering they can be, you'll make smarter, safer choices. We don't want to see you and your parents in our emergency room because you learned the hard way.

In this program we talk about how to prevent brain and spinal cord injury by Thinking First!

The Importance of Injury Prevention

Injuries are the leading cause of death for ages 1-44. The highest risk group is ages 15-24; the second highest group is 5-14. The reason these ages are such high risk is because you're the ones that are the most active, you're not afraid to try new things, maybe you're involved in sports, and soon you're going to be driving. As a teen and pre-teen you have less adult supervision and are making more of your own decision. All this is good...we want you to be active and independent; we just want you to know how to participate in these activities in a safe way for yourself and others.

These are the activities that cause. Half of the serious injuries are caused during car crashes followed by violence, falls and sports. About half are drug or alcohol related. If your reaction time is slower, your balance is thrown off or you're not thinking clearly because you've been using drugs, this just increases your risk for becoming injured.