When David Sutton arrived on the scene of a reported bike accident earlier this year, he saw an injured Casey Schmidt's pale body sprawled out with an open leg fracture and a dislocated arm.
Schmidt, a 29-year-old Ph.D. student at UF, remembers seeing a semitrailer about 50 feet in front of him while riding his bike down Southwest Second Avenue on March 20.
He doesn't remember the truck taking a right turn through the bike lane, hitting and then dragging him, causing a laundry list of serious bodily injuries, including a badly broken right leg, a dislocated left arm, a broken pelvis, a collapsed lung caused by three broken ribs, three broken fingers and a broken clavicle.
What wasn't injured was Casey's brain: He was wearing his bike helmet.
"There's no doubt he would have been dead without the helmet," said Sutton, a firefighter and paramedic for the Gainesville Fire Rescue. "Medically, we can fix a lot of problems. One thing we can't do much about is brain trauma."
In the Reitz Union's Rion Ballroom Wednesday night, Schmidt and Sutton talked about the accident and the importance of bicycle safety to a crowd of about 60 young Gators. The two were part of the New Student Programs Featured Speakers Series.
Schmidt was one of the lucky ones. Despite all his injuries, he was back home in about two weeks.
Although his physical rehabilitation has been painful and difficult, he hopes to be walking, free of a cane, in a month - a remarkable feat given the scale of his injuries.
Schmidt and Sutton are doing what they can to alert students about the importance of wearing a bike helmet. With Schmidt's horror story as a backdrop, the two tried to convince others why something so basic can be so critical.
"If I was outside mowing my lawn, and you saw that my house was on fire, wouldn't you tell me?" Sutton said. "Of course you would. And that's what we're trying to do now. We're letting people know, 'Hey. Your house is on fire.'"
Sutton said he is always shocked to see how many students on campus neglect to wear helmets, not just on their bikes, but on scooters and motorcycles as well.
According to Sutton, bicyclists hospitalized with head injuries are 20 times more likely to die than those without, and wearing a helmet reduces your risk of head injury by 85 percent.
Both agree that the No. 1 reason why most people don't wear helmets is that they don't think it's cool.
"That's 100 percent it," Sutton said. "It's like wearing a tie; people think they look dorky."
Schmidt and Sutton were brought in to talk to students as part of First-Year Florida, a UF class that brings together new students. Although attending was a class requirement, freshman Caralyn Maerz said she took something away from the presentation.
"They brought up a lot of good points," Maerz said. "As young adults, sometimes we feel like we're indestructible, and we're not. I will definitely wear my helmet from now on."
Sutton closed by telling the audience to enjoy themselves while in college but to exercise some caution.
"This is life. Bad things can happen," he said. "Don't let your downfall be something as stupid as not wearing a bike helmet."
