Part 1: What Brain Injury Really Looks Like

One Fall Away: A Series on Helmets, E-Bikes & Brain Injuries

Part 1: What Brain Injury Really Looks Like

By Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita

📝 Names and some identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of those involved.

When people zip by me on e-bikes or scooters, helmetless, carefree, with toddlers perched behind them like accessories—my stomach tightens.

Because I know what happens after the crash.

Not in theory. In real life.
In the quiet, sterile rooms.
In the long days of wiping drool, massaging limbs, combing out neglected hair, feeding porridge to once a genius 🥺.
In the heartbreaking 💔silence of people who used to laugh, talk, dream—and now can’t even feed themselves.

The Summer That Changed Everything

It was 1994. I was finishing my diploma in photography, and that summer I worked for a company called Classic Care, taking care of people with brain injuries. These weren’t just clients. These were once vibrant human beings with full lives, families, futures.

And then… an accident. A wrong turn. A missing seatbelt. A moment.

“Janey” – Frontal Lobe Damage

She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t make eye contact. She couldn’t feed herself. My job was to brush her hair, clean her clothes, paint her nails—give her dignity.

Her husband drove them into traffic during an argument. He survived. She didn’t—not really.

Their kids didn’t visit. He didn’t either. Only her mother came, feeding her daughter spoon by spoon, holding onto the tiniest thread of hope.

“George” – Traumatic Injury from RV Crash

His family was on their way to Disneyland. He was sleeping in the back of an RV without a seatbelt. It crashed.

Nonverbal. Scarred. Tube-fed. He flinched when nurses cleaned infection from his feeding tube. Sometimes, he would grab his wheelchair with all his strength, like trying to scream.

“Michael” – A Brilliant Mind Lost

Top student in BC. A genius. Then came the Whistler grad trip. His friend flipped the car into a ditch. Michael was underwater for 20 minutes. Only the cold saved his life.

He survived, but couldn’t walk, had constant seizures, and tried to say things that made no sense. The light in his eyes was gone.

What People Don’t See

• The exhaustion of caregivers
• The silence of abandoned patients
• The emotional toll that never leaves
• The cost—financial, physical, emotional

Why I’m Telling You This

Because I’ve seen what brain injury really looks like. And I see helmetless people every day like it’s a joke.

These injuries were preventable. Let’s prevent the next one.

👉 In Part 2: We’ll talk about how brain injuries are rising—and the real cost.

👉 In Part 3: We’ll ask: What if it was YOU?