Ian Tilmann Foundation Fundraiser At Safety Harbor Skate Park
by Floyd Egner
Publisher, Tropical Breeze
Ian Tilmann was 28 when he fell and hit his head in June 2005 while “longboarding” on a street in Clearwater. He died 10 days later. Born and raised in Safety Harbor, he was a Marine, a four-year veteran.
“He had a typical attitude of invincibility,” his mother Marcy Tilmann said. “If he’d had a helmet, he would have survived.”
The loss of her son has given Tilmann a mission in life — trying to give a helmet to every child who skateboards, rollerblades or participates in any skating sport where brain injury is a possibility. She created the Ian Tilmann Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to brain injury prevention.
She has given away more than 200 certified helmets valued at about $50 each, 95 to participants in Safety Harbor summer youth camps alone. She is a regular speaker at Pinellas County school...