Stacey and Mike Shanks paid $130 for a good motorcycle helmet for their son. Now they say it would have been a bargain at 10 times that price.

Five-year-old Dallas Shanks was wearing the helmet last week when he fell from his dirt bike into the path of a car. He broke his leg but escaped more serious injury.

Dr. Charles G. Penick, who treated the boy at the emergency room at Mary Washington Hospital, said this week that the helmet saved Dallas' life.

"It's a simple fact," Penick said. "The amount of force from the weight of the car would have crushed his skull."

Dallas is among thousands of U.S. motorcycle riders who are alive because of their helmets.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that when a motorcycle rider crashes, he or she is more likely to survive the crash and less likely to be seriously injured if wearing a helmet.

The federal agency estimates that helmets save at least 600 lives a year.

Dallas' parents insisted that he wear a helmet when riding his Honda 50 dirt bike. The bike, smaller than an adult dirt bike, is made for riders who weigh less than 88 pounds.

Dallas has been riding since he was 2. Last Saturday he was riding in his yard and on a gravel driveway behind his house near the Spotsylvania County Courthouse.

Dallas spilled just as a neighbor was backing out the driveway. The neighbor did not see him on the ground and backed over him.

The neighbor felt and heard a thump, Stacey Shanks said. He looked under his car, thinking he had hit a dog. Instead, he found Dallas.

The child was conscious but not moving. A crowd gathered, including Dallas' mother, who tried to keep her son calm.

Dallas was pinned so tightly beneath the car--his helmet squished against his face--that the neighbor had to use a jack to free him.

"There was no room between the car and him. None," Stacey Shanks said.

At the hospital, CT scans showed no damage to his head, neck or abdomen. His right leg was broken, where the car ran over it.

Dallas is now receiving visitors from the couch in his living room. He wears a cast that goes from his ankle to above his waist. It will be six to eight weeks before he rides again.

Safety experts recommend that helmets be replaced periodically or after an accident. Stacey Shanks said her son will need a new one. His helmet was cracked in three places.

To reach JIM HALL: 540/374-5433 jhall@freelancestar.com