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Please let me have your comments on this article - if they are
relevant I will post them with a by line
To date there is no evidence that wearing a ski helmet will prevent
death or serious injury on the slopes. There is some evidence to
suggest that minor injuries, including mild concussion, can be
prevented by wearing a ski helmet, but it is not conclusive.
However, there has been no reduction in skiing or snowboarding
fatalities since ski helmets were introduced and significantly, more
people die wearing helmets than those who don't.
Hysteria is too strong a word for it, but it is obvious that there is a
*collective reasoning based on fear and
superstition, misplaced as it happens, that wearing a ski
helmet protects you and your family from death or brain injury and
therefore makes you a 'responsible citizen'. It doesn't.
Suppose you hit a tree at thirty miles an hour without a ski helmet.
What do think will happen to you? The rapid de-acceleration your body
experiences will probably be enough to kill you, but it will be
difficult to pin the cause of death down to one specific injury. It's
possible it may have been a brain injury but just as likely to have
been trauma in the form of rupture to a damaged internal organ and/or a broken bone, shock,
blood loss or a combination of all five.
It's even money that if you are a skier you wear a ski helmet as nearly half of
us do, but I am not convinced. Let's get
back to the tree? Would wearing a helmet protect you? It's unlikely -
over half of the people who died in ski or snowboarding accidents in
2008 (US ski resorts) were wearing a helmet. As less than half
the skiing population wear helmets, someone could say that the chance
of dying is increased if you wear a helmet, but I won't go that
far.
What I will add, however, are the words of Carl Ettlinger, a ski
accident guru from Vermont: 'When you feel that rush of adrenaline
while skiing or snowboarding, ask yourself if you would be doing what
you are doing if you were not wearing a helmet. If the answer is 'No',
maybe you should reconsider the activity.'
So what use, if any, are ski helmets? Well, they do appear to reduce
the incidence of minor head injuries in young skiers and boarders;
added to this there is a case study from Japan suggesting a reduction of 43% in head
injuries among children up to the age of thirteen. So for young
children only, I would recommend the use of a ski helmet on the piste.
Let's touch on the collective
responsibility thing. Is it not our moral obligation to ensure that
safety is paramount and that it would be negligent not to wear a ski
helmet? Yes? Well in that case we shouldn't really be skiing at all.
However we look at it, skiing is a dangerous sport and is not
intrinsically safe, whatever precautions we take. One of the reasons
for doing it is to experience the danger. It's in our genes.
That's all there is to it.
Just after the introduction of seat belts and some years after the
introduction of motorcycle helmets (both of which save thousands of
lives), I spent a morning wearing a motorcycle helmet while I was
driving my battered old Vauxhall Viva round London. I got some very
strange looks. Would I get the same looks today? I reckon I would -
let's face it, the celebs driving around the track in the Top Gear car
don't really look very trendy. However, on the ski slopes it is
actually considered cool to wear a ski helmet - inherited from the
snowboarders who started the habit back in the eighties.
Mention my name to anyone who knows me and my skiing. I've been doing
it for forty two years. They will tell you that I was a maniac in
times past, and I have broken bones, torn ligaments, scars, and
hospital visits to prove it. But I shall never wear a ski helmet for
recreational skiing.
*Just as I finished this article I was sent the following by a friend
- it's an extract from a longer piece by John Harris (View
website) but it could not be more relevant:
"We are now on a crossroad. (Our) system at present relies primarily on
people disciplining and conditioning each other. The programming works
on the basis of fear. The fear of standing out from the group and the
opposing fear of the outsider are primitive drives, and are exploited
all the time."
Main Source: Helmets for Snow Sports - Dr Mike Langran (collected
data from many sources) - 2009 (View
website). Dr Langran is a GP practising in Aviemore, Scotland, and
has been collecting and studying ski injury data for many years.
©Simon Dewhurst - 15 April 2010
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