THUNDER BAY - Even though it is a common injury that can have lasting affects, most youth and some adults don’t know how to recognize the symptoms of a concussion or how to treat it.
Scouts Canada and Hydro One are hoping to change that through Head Safe, a community initiative to educate the public on head safety and concussions.
“This is a really great initiative and opportunity for us to come together and collaborate and deliver these activities for the community to come out and youth and parents to become engaged and learn about the symptoms and some of the causes and what to do if you receive a concussion,” said Clinton Christiansen, council youth commissioner for Northern Ontario Council for Scouts Canada.
Programming has been offered all across the province and on Saturday the Head Safe initiative was held at Lakehead University, the first time in the Northwest.
Youth and adults participated in various activities, including a concussion simulator, what good helmets should feel like, an egg drop, and a concussion first aid station.
“Unfortunately, concussions are one of those things that can happen anywhere at anytime,” Christiansen said. “You don’t have to just be playing sports. Youth and parents alike typically don’t know about concussions until they happen and when they do happen, they typically don’t know the symptoms and they typically don’t know how to recognize or treat concussions.”
“This is a really great opportunity for us at a community level to come out to show youth and parents alike what some of those symptoms and treatments are like to treat a concussion.”
Concussions account for more than one in five injuries treated by doctors and nurses in Ontario.
For Madhu Rupasinghe, community investment coordinator with Hydro One, the Head Safe initiative aligns with the values Hydro One tries to exhibit in the community.
“Every single day our employees embody the values of safety and it’s important for us to take that and extend that to the communities we live and work in,” she said.
“Through out community investment program we are committed to building safe communities, particularly with young people and their families and training them on injury prevention, safety training, and how to play safe. I feel like at a really young age that I feel youth can embody that value of safety and something they can practice every single day and playing safe and living safe.”
