“I’m honored,” Dr. Barringer said. “It was a total surprise. We have a great team.”

In 2008, the county’s coalition received the state Coalition of the Year Award and Judy Hawkins, RN, coordinator for Safe Kids Cleveland County, was named state Coordinator of the Year.

“Dr. Barringer is Cleveland County’s strongest and most passionate advocate for excellence in injury prevention, pre-hospital and trauma care,” Hawkins said. “He has used his intellect and compassion to lead the way in making changes that will affect our citizens long into the future.”

Dr. Barringer is the longest serving active board member on the Safe Kids of Cleveland County, and has long been an advocate for injury prevention. He is a trauma surgeon at the hospital’s Level III Trauma Center and has seen too many injuries involving children.

“As a trauma center, one of our main goals is to reduce the very things you have to take care of,” he said. “We made a commitment early on to focus mostly on children. If kids are educated at an early age about risk taking and injury prevention then maybe they’ll remember later, and it will get them through the teenage years.”

CRMC began its efforts in 1995 with a school-based pilot safety program called KidTips. “We went into the schools to teach kindergartners about fall prevention, fire safety, car safety, bus safety, things like that,” Dr. Barringer said.

The program quickly grew to include each kindergarten and second grade student in the county and Cherryville.

He helped steer Cleveland Regional Medical Center Foundation’s mission to focus on injury prevention initiatives.

“I am so thankful to the foundation for their support of this effort,” Dr. Barringer said. “A lot of people give time and effort, but still it takes money. Because of the foundation, every kid who graduates from the KidsTips program gets a free bike helmet.”

In other words, more than 20,000 children have been fitted with bike helmets since the program began.

Hawkins said Dr. Barringer led the way for the establishment of a Safe Kids Coalition in 2000. With this came his support and participation in child safety seat checks, service as a Safety Zone host at the Cleveland County Fair, a Safe Teens presenter and participation in many other Safe Kids community efforts.

“He has even donned a giant kangaroo costume to become TraumaRoo at the Cleveland County Fair,” Hawkins said. “I don’t know of any person who would do all the things he does and he does it on a volunteer basis. He’s been quoted as saying, ‘I want to work myself out of a job as a trauma surgeon.’ ”

The fair is a great venue for reaching lots of children, Dr. Barringer said. “We end up having contact with more than a thousand kids during that week, which is really good.”

Although many factors come into play, Dr. Barringer feels there has been a decline in childhood injuries. “There’s no doubt that since Safe Kids has been active, we’ve seen a tremendous decline over that time in injuries,” he said. “But it’s not just because of our organization – there’s more awareness, the laws have changed, automobiles are safer.

“In the past, we would have injuries involving children who were not restrained,” he added. “We hardly ever have that anymore. There will always be injuries, but I like to think we’ve made a difference.”

The National SAFE KIDS Campaign, launched in 1988, shares the goal of all childhood injury prevention activists in reducing child death and disability resulting from unintentional injury. The top five risk areas are: traffic injuries (passenger, pedestrian, and bicyclist), fires and burns, drowning, choking and poisoning, and falls.

For more information on Safe Kids Cleveland County, call 980-487-3826.