Richard Childress is a man of many talents and interests. A six-time Sprint Cup champion car owner and former driver, Childress owns vineyards, actively hunts around the world and is fostering his grandsons' rise through the racing world one level at a time.

That's the public Richard Childress.

The private Richard Childress and his wife, Judy, spend their time doing things like ushering in a new era of commitment to pediatric trauma.

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On July 30, it was announced that Richard and Judy had donated $5 million to start what they plan to be the nation's most comprehensive institute for pediatric trauma in association with Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center (read more).

It's another example of NASCAR folk giving to their communities, and it's a big one. The $5 million initial gift is to get the program started, and there's an additional $20 million needed to see it through.

Childress was born and raised in the area, and to him, it's part of being a good community citizen. He has children and grandchildren, and they are on his mind a lot, especially with his grandsons racing now.

Childress got the idea a couple of years ago when he went to speak to a group of neurosurgeons out in Arizona.

"I went to speak to a group of neurosurgeons out in Scottsdale, Ariz., basically on teamwork ... you know, the brain and the spine, getting the two types of neurosurgeons to work together," Childress said. "I went and spoke to them, and when they were going to pay me for that, I said, 'Just take the money and put it in the local children's hospital.' I told Dr. Charlie Branch, 'How about finding something that Judy and I can put our feet into and put some time and really get behind it that can help save kids' lives?'

"A few months went by, two or three, and they came back with the idea of pediatric trauma, and once they started explaining it to us, my first question was, 'How could this be? This is the 21st century, and this shouldn't be. This should have been addressed 50 years ago or longer.' We know that research works. It saves lives. Once they started explaining to us about the need for it and the need for awareness of it, we got on board and made a financial commitment. We also made a commitment to get the word out and do fundraisers to do what it takes to get us to the next level."

How next-level will Childress go? Straight to Washington, D.C.

"I'll probably be going to Congress this year to testify to the National Institutes of Health," Childress said. "For every man, woman and child in America, they spent $18 or something like that, and we know that works. People are living with cancer longer, we know that works. All the research they're doing is money well spent. We know that for every man, woman and child in America last year, they spent $10 on AIDS, and we know that works. People are living longer with AIDS.

"But for every man, woman and child in America, they spend nine cents on childhood trauma, and that's the No. 1 killer of our children. More than 12,000 children died last year from trauma. More than 100,000 were left injured, needing rehabilitation, and there's no single rehabilitation center in America to help take care of these children, much less for the needs of the families."

Childress works at the highest level of NASCAR, the head of a multi-million-dollar company that's one of the largest employers in the region. Still, he's a father and grandfather, and that counts more.

"The worst thing any of us can do is to lose a child, and that is the kind of thing that when something like that happens, we need help for those families," he said. "That's something we want to get behind and help. We want to be able to train medics over here, we want pediatric specialists to be trained over here, we want the research to be done so that when a child has a head trauma, what does his blood pressure need to be, how to you need to bring his blood pressure back to level. They just take the adult information and downsize it. Nobody knows. Is that right or is that wrong?

"There's a thousand other examples. Some of your first-response vehicles may not have a small enough mask to fit a child, they may not have a small enough cuff to get true blood pressures and things. These are the things that we want to go out and let people know how to save the lives of children, and it starts from first response."

What is it about NASCAR drivers and racers in general that causes this type of civic response? This is pillar-of-the-community stuff writ large.

"I just think we're connected so closely to our fans, closer than any other sport," Childress said. "Just the things that we see -- we travel a lot, and you see sick kids, injured kids and families that have gone through trauma. You can't believe the [amount of] letters that come through here that tell their stories or ask for their help on a dying child. It just -- we've hired a full-time minister here just to help us with a lot of that."

Childress has seen what happens when a child is lost to injury.

"I've had employees lose children and friends to lose children, and to see how hard it is on them and how hard it is on the family -- my brother lost his son in a car accident," he said. "There's so many children out there today that are in trauma that I think we can save some of those 12,000 that died last year. Probably 3,000 of them died instantly, but the other 9,000, could we have done things to save their lives from the very first response when we got there, training the medics and the people that are the first to arrive, make sure they have the equipment and know the proper way. We're going to be an advocate for learning these things and sending it out to people as we learn it in research.

"There's only 14 Level 1 children's trauma centers in the U.S. today, and we want to take the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and create it as a Level 1 trauma center model so that all these other hospitals can come in and see what it takes to become a Level 1 children's trauma center."

The Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma will focus on key areas in treatment, education, training, research and prevention of pediatric trauma. The Institute's goal is to help pave the way for others in the nation searching for ways to help save the lives of severely injured children and help those who survive on the road to recovery.

J. Wayne Meredith, M.D., chief of surgery at Wake Forest Baptist, medical director of Trauma Programs for the American College of Surgeons and the interim director of the institute, said the institute "will have a national impact and bring much more attention and awareness to this issue. We need a better way to treat children and there is not enough research being done."

The Childress family and the Medical Center will continue to work with corporations and individuals to raise the additional $20 million to establish the Childress Institute. Because of significant programs and infrastructure in place at Wake Forest Baptist, the institute will be able to devote most of the monies to research, education, treatment and prevention and to raising the national awareness about childhood injuries. The project will also help expand its state-of-the-art pediatric emergency department for the Triad region.

For more information, visit www.childresspediatrictrauma.org, www.wfubmc.edu or call toll free at (866) 635-8190.

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