SEATTLE — Skateboarding makes Seth Amrhein feel like a kid again.
“It still gets my heart pumping,” Amrhein, who is in his 40s, explained. “It still inspires me to keep at it.”
He began skating in 1986 but added a new trick this summer: wearing a helmet.
Amrhein said he made the change after hearing about what happened to 19-year-old Aidan Schellings last April. The Bellevue College student fractured his skull and suffered a traumatic brain injury while skateboarding at Seattle’s Greenlake skate park.
“It was really just a heartbreaking thing to hear,” said Amrhein.
Schellings was not wearing a helmet.
Doctors told Schellings’ family he might not walk or talk again. Schellings is improving at a Colorado hospital, but his family said he will never be the same.
His parents hope his story serves as a warning to other skateboarders to wear your helmet.
Amrhein received the message and bought a new helmet after seeing stories about Aidan. He did it for protection and to set a good example for his daughter and other young skaters.
At first, Amrhein bought the helmet to wear when he skates with his daughter but said he now wears it all the time.
"I felt this vulnerability without my helmet," Amrhein explained. "Why am I doing this? Why don't I wear it all the time?"