La Cañada Teen Injured in Skateboarding Accident

Skateboarders are a fact of California life. They race down alleyways, leap over steps at churches and practice their extreme sports moves at school playgrounds. These young daredevils perform gravity-defying stunts they see on boarding videos. They are fearless and believe themselves to be immortal because they are, for the most part, teenagers. Then, for some unlucky ones, there is that one moment they are brought back to reality, the moment when they or one of their friends gets really hurt.

That reality is what seven teens from La Cañada are now facing after their friend, Daniel Andersen, suffered a complex concussion June 17 while skateboarding at La Cañada Elementary school.

Andersen, who will be an eighth grader at La Cañada High School in the fall, was skateboarding with friends at LCE when he fell and hit his head. He was not wearing a helmet.

“He was unconscious anywhere from two to six minutes,” Tom Lynch, his father, said.

There were no adults around when the accident happened, so the time of unconsciousness is difficult to determine.

“The kids tried to call 911 from their cell phones,” Lisa Singelyn, a mother of one of the boys, said. “More than one tried to call 911 but got a busy signal or was put on hold.”

Lynch and his wife were on the Foothill (210) Freeway when they received a call from one of the boys. “My wife tried calling 911, and it was busy then she was put on hold, too.”

The boys tried for some time to get through, they then went to Singelyn’s nearby house.

“My son was there. He came to our house and got me,” Singelyn said.

She called the emergency number for Crescenta Valley Sheriff’s Station, 957-2918, and got help immediately. By the time the parents arrived the paramedics and ambulance were already there.

“I have always known about the emergency number. I am part of the Gladiators football, and they told us about it,” Singelyn said.

Emergency calls from cell phones are routed directly to the California Highway Patrol, CV Sheriff’s watch commander Jim Noennick said. He added that using the CV emergency number goes directly to the CV Sheriff’s Station where the volume of calls are much less than those received through CHP.

According to spokeswoman for CHP, Jaime Coffee, in 2005 statewide CHP answered 10 million 911 cell phone calls. In Crescenta Valley area in January, February and March, 2006 CHP answered 350,000 calls.

“[The CV emergency] number works as long as you are in the city boundaries of La Cañada or in the unincorporated area of Crescenta Valley.”

Andersen was taken to Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, where a neurosurgeon was available. He was later transferred to Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena.

Andersen’s mother, Sandra Lynch, said doctors told her her son was lucky. They told her a 22-year-old man brought in the same day with a head injury due to a skateboarding accident died later that day.

Andersen is recovering at home after an eight-day stay in the hospital. He suffers from headaches and nausea but is expected to make a full recovery.

His parents want to stress the fact that the emergency calls that went to the CV Sheriff’s Station were answered very promptly. The fact that Singelyn knew the emergency number was a great advantage.

The emergency number was developed because of this problem, Noennick said. He added that residents can come to the sheriff’s station and pick up stickers that have the emergency number on them.

“I went and got stickers for everyone involved that Monday,” Singelyn said.

Andersen’s parents also stress the importance of wearing a helmet.

“He walked out the door with his helmet but didn’t put it on,” Sandra said.

Lynch said that he worries that other kids are taking their helmets to please their parents but not wearing them.

“If Daniel could do anything to [make this a positive experience] it would be to teach them to wear their helmets,” Lynch said. “It was a tough thing for everyone.”