Central Queensland mission to inspire safe behaviours in school children

Brisbane resident Wayne Leo will travel to Central Queensland to share his story next month (NOVEMBER) with almost 1,300 children at six schools in four days. As he has done for the past 21 years to more than 225,000 children in his voluntary role with the Spinal Education Awareness Team (SEAT), Wayne will speak to the students about how he sustained his spinal cord injury and how to prevent it from happening to them.

Schools within the Mackay region including Glendon State School and Seaforth State School, will host Wayne during Spinal Injuries Awareness Week (9 – 15 November).

Wayne is one of 14 SEAT presenters dedicated to preventing injuries and educating Queensland children on how to stay safe. These men and women, who either have quadriplegia or paraplegia, have spoken to more than 1.2 million children since the program began in 1987.

Last year, in the week before Schoolies Week, SEAT presenters spoke to 6,000 students and 14,000 during November. This year the presenters are expecting similar numbers.

Wayne said the safety messages of SEAT were especially pertinent given school holidays and the warmer weather was fast approaching.

“The summer months can be a particularly dangerous time for sustaining a spinal cord injury as children are outside playing or swimming at the beach or in local creeks, and there are more people travelling on the roads on holidays,” he said.

“And seeing as road trauma is the number one cause of all spinal cord injuries in Queensland, followed by falls and crushes and water-related accidents, it’s very important that we reach these children to make them consider the consequences of their behaviour.”

SEAT presentations also raise awareness of people with a disability as it is often the first time some of the children have seem someone using a wheelchair.

“Kids are great because they’re not afraid to ask what everyone else wants to know,” Wayne said.

“We get lots of amusing questions like ‘how do you sleep in your wheelchair?’ The young ones don’t understand that you actually get out of the chair to sleep, so a SEAT visit is a big eye opener for them.”

Coinciding with the success of SEAT in the past 10 years, Queensland has gone from having the highest incidence of spinal cord injuries in Australia, to the second lowest.

However each year in Queensland 90 people still sustain a devastating spinal cord injury – that’s one person almost every four days.

SEAT is a service of the Spinal Injuries Association, a not-for-profit organisation that began in 1960.

NOTE: Media are welcome to attend one of Wayne’s upcoming SEAT visits in Mackay.

15 October 2008.