Jun 4, 2007

Heelys: the latest menace

We prohibit skateboards, and frown on running in the halls, but somehow we haven't gotten around to banning Heelys at CHS--surprising, given public education's usual approach to liability. Heelys are hell on wheels.
Nine-year-old Noah Woelfel of Davidsonville, Md., wasn't a novice but still tripped and fell, breaking several fingers and wrist bones in his right hand last year.

"All it took was a tiny piece of gravel in the driveway that went up in the wheel and stopped him cold," said his mother, Nancy. "He required surgery and pins, and he was six weeks without using his hand, right at the beginning of school."
Or maybe not:
Heelys in April said a study it commissioned shows that their shoes have a safer injury rate than skateboarding, inline skating and even swimming.
Kids these days. What's next? Pogo pants?

Update: Turns out they're even more dangerous than originally estimated.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've considered doing this for a "What The Hell Is Wrong With The Children?", but I owned sneakers with lights.

White sneakers. Whoops.

Ariel said...

I hate Heelys! We sell them at Big 5 and the parents that buy them always have 6 children with them who already have Heelys. So, I'm standing there handing them pair after pair while the kids are wheeling around and around and knocking things over and making a mess (that I will clean up later). And most of the time we don't have a big enough size because we only carry children's sizes and sometimes boys grow up and then the parents chew me out for not having adult sized Heelys. It's madness!

Sorry about the rant.

Jim Anderson said...

Whoops indeed. That's a confession I didn't need to see.

Ariel, I totally support your right to rant. No apology necessary.