July 17, 2002 * 02-53-01

(KINGSTON, Kitsap County) -- A 13 year-old boy was taken by ambulance to the hospital early this evening after he sustained a potentially-serious head injury during a fall at a Kingston skateboard park.

North Kitsap Fire & Rescue personnel first learned of the incident when two women -- one of them, the boy's mother -- came into the district's Kingston station to find out if medics had seen him. The mother told firefighters that she'd received a call from one of the boy's friends, stating that he'd been hurt, but that the call had ended before she could get any more information.  NKF&R had not been dispatched to the incident, and, since its location was unknown, could not respond. The women left in search of him. Approximately fifteen minutes later, medics were called to a skateboard store about a block away from the skate park. The mother was at the store when crews arrived to find the 13 year-old bleeding from an injury to the right side of his head.  Although he was conscious, he was not fully alert. He told crews that he'd walked from the park to the skate store following the incident, but could not tell them how he'd fallen. During his transport to Harrison Memorial Hospital in Bremerton, medics reported that he began to show increasing signs of a more serious head injury.

The boy had not been wearing a helmet.