This message is from: "Gail Russell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> About helmets:
In March I found a promising employee, aged 25 or less. A few days later she got a head injury in a car accident because she was not wearing her seat belt. A week ago we had to let her go, after carrying her on the payroll for several months. Not only was she unable to work productively, but because she was a legal danger because she could not control her temper. What was she mad at? Well....the fact that she could remember everything from the past, but not what she had had for breakfast, or had said to someone any time in the last six months, even a few minutes before. However, she was perfectly able to know that she SHOULD be able to remember. While she is not drooling and incontinent, she is completely disabled, more so than if she were more physically disabled (there is no physical sign of her disability.) She has to have someone with her 24/7 to see that she does not injure her young children in a fit of rage, or burn the house down, or let her children wander off because she forgot she was watching them. And she is undergoing therapy where she has to write down what she has for breakfast to try to retrain her brain to remember things. She hates it, and is often non-compliant. At some point the therapy may be withdrawn because she is essentially too sick to cooperate....a Catch 22. It is possible she will recover in a year's time....but maybe not. My ex-employee is essentially in the same position as my 93 year old demented mother that I have been caring for during the last 8 years, sometimes with considerable resentment, even though my mother is completely blameless in her condition. I have been changing diapers, medicating rages, and spending $6000 to $8000 a month on her care. If this had happened because she failed to wear a helmet, I would be furious! As to my former employee, I am quite angry with her for not wearing a seat belt. However I am most thankful that I am not emotionally or financially obligated to care for her. Even if you care nothing for yourself, give your family, employers/employees and others who depend upon you or are responsible for you a break. Gail The FjordHorse List archives can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/rcepw
