'There is nothing quite like landing flat on your back from five feet up onto hard, pebbly ground as an eight-year-old. Not being able to breathe for 30 or 40 seconds, feeling as if you might vomit, and enduring the pain of bruised ribs for the following week can teach a child to respect heights and gravity like no classroom activity ever can," a Globe reader wrote in a recent letter to the editor.
"I injured myself repeatedly throughout my childhood. I would not give up one moment of pain, one drop of blood, or one incident of trying [to] scratch under a cast with a ruler for anything. It was grand!" the letter continued.
In this charming bit of nostalgia is reflected the common belief that play involves risks and that getting hurt is part of growing up -- it builds character.
Implicit, too, in this harkening back to a bygone era is the notion that kids today are too coddled, that the so-called nanny state is, in the words of a Globe editorial, trying to create a "risk-free, fun-free" environment that takes all the joy out of childhood.
Nonsense.
Trauma -- falls, motor vehicle crashes, drowning, suffocation -- is the leading cause of death, disability and severe injury among Canadian children.
There is nothing grand about a child who takes his new bike out for a spin and cracks open his head in a fall, nothing magical in a game of hide-and-seek that ends with a little girl suffocated because she hid in an old beer fridge, no better-than-school lesson for a child who falls from an old slide and shatters his spine, nothing wonderful in finding a toddler floating face down in a pool.
But there is something enduring about losing a child to a banal accident: crushing, inconsolable grief.
Injury-prevention programs and injury-prevention groups including Safe Kids Canada, SmartRisk and ThinkFirst have sprung up for a reason.
And it is no coincidence that all these groups were founded by front-line health professionals who had witnessed the senseless carnage first-hand in pediatric emergency rooms and critical-care units, and decided to dedicate themselves to prevention.
This week, Allyson Hewitt, executive director of Safe Kids Canada, a group based at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, released data that should give all parents pause.
Standing in front of 50 silhouette cutouts of children, she noted that, based on experience, during this summer's school holidays an estimated 50 children will die and another 1,800 will be seriously injured while participating in four basic activities: biking, swimming, walking and playing in playgrounds.
Safe Kids estimates that about 40 per cent of the deaths and serious injuries are easily preventable with some basic prevention measures: wearing a properly fitted bike helmet; fencing of pools and supervising children near water; not letting children under the age of 10 cross the street alone; and using playgrounds that meet safety standards (notably soft surfaces and structures no higher than 1.5 metres.).
Another life-saving measure, which was not explicitly stated by the group, is insisting that police enforce traffic regulations, because the leading cause of death of children is motor-vehicle crashes that involve speeding and other violations of the rules of the road.
Note that Ms. Hewitt did not say that children should not bike, swim, walk and play. On the contrary, she encouraged it, saying "kids should get out and get active," though she added that they should "stay safe" doing so.
Injury-prevention groups acknowledge that kids will get hurt. But they argue, quite reasonably, that society should try to reduce risks through education and, where necessary, legislation.
No one is suggesting that children be locked away in a protective bubble or that shock troops scour the countryside to whisk them away from inappropriate play surfaces. But there is no justification for dismissing safety concerns while encouraging play and physical activity.
There is no evidence, despite the moaning of libertarian critics, that safer play is duller play, or that safety measures discourage activity.
Wearing a helmet in no way interferes with the joy of biking or rollerblading; tumbling from the monkey bars into sand instead of onto asphalt is no great loss; and walking to the store to buy a Popsicle on a street where speed limits are enforced infringes on no one's rights.
It's time to stop romanticizing risk and injury and start recognizing the benefits, and the limits, of injury prevention.
Kids will still get their bumps and bruises and their itchy summer casts. But if we take the issue of safety seriously, we will be burying a lot fewer children in the summers to come.
There is nothing quite like living to play again another day.
Postscript: A number of readers have inquired about how a team of firefighters, who were profiled on these pages on May 17 as they prepared to run last Sunday's National Capital Marathon in their full gear, fared in their novel fundraising endeavour for breast cancer research.
The three from the Fire and Emergency Services of Ajax, Ont. -- Mark Somerville, Jeff Wright and Teresa Nowell -- managed to complete the 42.2-kilometre run in just under six hours.
"It was a long, tough slog," Mr. Somerville said, noting that they each carried more than 15 kilograms of equipment on their backs.
True to form, the firefighters found themselves stopping along the route to offer first aid to runners who succumbed to the stifling heat and humidity, while managing to hang on themselves.
The group's next goal is to do a 60-kilometre walk as part of the Weekend to End Breast Cancer, which takes place in Toronto Sept. 9-11.
