NY Times - Ski Helmet Use Isn’t Reducing Brain Injuries

[Bostonian]

As someone who was wearing one last year when I crumpled myself, I will say it helped save my ass. While I agree that it is the shaking of the brain that causes TBI and a helmet will not absolutely prevent all injuries of the brain; it does none the less help mitigate some of the damage that could have happened. The shock that is absorbed by the helmet does help, and I feel lowers the risk. That said, having a helmet doesn't make me ski faster or better (to be honest I suck!), but it gives me the pause to think about mitigating any risk I take on the hill.

 

[Bobt2ski]

After reading all of this my thoughts are. If the odds are even small, if wearing a helmet is safer, I'm wearing one. I'd rather have a helmet on than a knot on the side of my head!!!

 

[MadMadWorld]

I just started wearing one this year. I like it. Makes me go faster. Tuna speed.

Pretty much the only reason I wear one is that is something were to happen, regardless of whether or not the helmet helped in that particular situation, if I weren't wearing the helmet, I'd never hear the end of it.

On a more serious note, the majority of my injuries have been from crashing into things with my ribs and back or my hands and wrists. I think wristguards and some sort of core / spin protector would have more potential benefit than a helmet. Been meaning to look into that....

Exactly. Skiing helmets are not made for impact with trees. In reality people that collide with trees more often than not die from internal injuries to the chest and neck than the head.

 

[fbrissette]

^ Doesn't understand that brain damage and concussion aren't the only head/cranial injuries

That is indeed a very good point. Most helmets are designed against catastrophic injuries such as skull fractures and lacerations and offer limited protection against concussions. Helmets offer some energy dissipation against head-on collisions that nevertheless offer some minimal protection against concussions, and some newer design (in some POC helmets) afford protection against rotational movement (http://mipshelmet.com/home). One thing is sure, while a helmet may not offer full protection, your outcome will always be better with than without.

 

[RENO]

Most frequent almost daily use of my helmet - the guy who lowers the safety bar .07 seconds after he sits down and smacks me as I haven't even gotten my back on the backrest yet.

My helmet has many many scratches from idiots doing this! :-?

 

[RENO]

Helmets don't prevent the brain from shaking inside the skull. That's what causes the majority of trauma in most head injuries, therefore a helmet has limited effectiveness. How hard is this for people to understand? lol A helmet provides some protection again sharp objects(a jagged rock, a rail, the edge of a half pipe) since it spreads the force out. It also helps protect the bone. If you fall and hit your head on the snow, a helmet will probably do nothing.(helmet might help a little on ice, but not soft snow) All the helmets on the slopes started when that celebrity fell and hit her head on a bunny hill and died in a 1 in million type event. Then the masses decided they needed a helmet to prevent death on a bunny hill. Just as likely to die falling in a bathroom and helmet probably wouldn't have done anything for he sadly.

This is changing a lot with MIPS technology. http://mipshelmet.com/home I always wear a helmet, but I'm looking to get one of these for Snowboarding and mountain biking. Selection isn't big yet, but it's increasing. A few I like in here: http://mipshelmet.com/find-a-helmet

 

[tnt]

While a helmet won't save me from a concussion, it could save me from lacerations and fractures. So that's enough reason for me.

Re: tree skiing, sure if won't help with chest wounds, but it will help with branches to the noggin, so I wear it for the trees as well.

 

[HD333]

I don't get why people would not wear a helmet. Some protection is better than none. A seat belt isn't a guarantee that you won't die in a crash but it sure gives you a better chance to survive. I view wearing a helmet the same.




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[RootDKJ]

One day I was skiing and I took a fall off a small jump and the back of my head hit the ground and the little plastic piece that cinches the hood up slammed right into my skull and hurt like hell. Got a helmet right after that.

That helmet protected me a few years later when I took a headfirst slide into the woods off Great Eastern down near Skyeship. Totally didn't see that coming as I was just cruising at moderate speed on my way in. Interesting enough, my CamelPak provided decent back protection. After my head bounced off the first tree, I got spun around and my back stopped my fall when I hit the second tree. Interesting divot in the helmet.

 

[from_the_NEK]

One night at Bretton Woods I wrecked a helmet with a moderate speed forehead first plant into hard snow after skiing into a minefield of fluffy snow covered frozen dirt clods on the edge of a trail. I think I was very mildly concussed. I still feel that my helmet dissipated the shock enough to prevent a worse concussion. There was a serious dent in the front of the helmet. I also have a friend who put a dent in a MTB helmet and walked away (again, very mildly concussed). In both cases I think the head injuries would have been a lot worse. I'm under no illusion that a helmet is a cure all but I do believe can reduce the significance of head injury. By Snowlover's logic, we don't need to wear helmets in any sport we do.

 

[teqeeler]

Sure I do.

But I understand the shaking of the brain is what causes the injury. I wore a helmet before and it did jack shit. Then I looked at the data and understood the way the brain gets injured and how ineffective a helmet would be on a head to snow collision. It's kind of funny. I was hit full tilt on the head with a hockey stick(mcsorely type of baseball bat swing)....no head injury. Probably would have been dead without helmet. That TYPE of sharp high pound per square inch hit....a helmet is great. Rotational force injuries? Not so much unfortunately. It's my knowledge of that that guides my decision that a helmet would basically be useless in a head to snow impact. There are no rocks all over the trail where I ski so I'm not worried about hitting that.

Hell I feel kind of "funny" when I just bang my head a little on the car headrest when I hit a bump. It's "shaking".

BTW- I'm not a doctor and certainly wouldn't want to feel responsible if anyone got injured by listening to me and not wearing a helmet. If you're worried, wear a helmet. It won't hurt and can only help. It's a personal decision. I just don't like being called an idiot because I don't wear a helmet. I don't ski fast and I just enjoy the outdoors and the powder and having fun. So I was just trying to explain why I don't wear one. I also don't like being FORCED to wear one by a ski area.

If i'm following your logic, do you believe hockey players should not wear helmets as a hockey puck to the head you can just "sew up" and all the head injuries are caused by shaking of the brain so a hockey helmet will do no good?
BTW i don't wear a helmet. I don't ski tree's but if I did wear a helmet i'd would be a lot more apt to ski tree's thus increasing my danger imo. I'm sure helmets give alot of people a great sense of security thus taking more chances then they normally would. But i still might wear a helmet , i've never fell and hit my head before but if i did i'm sure a helmet would help cusion the blow.
I agree with you with taking it easy on the slopes will reduce alot of risk.

 

[Smellytele]

While tree skiing it protects your head from getting stabbed by branches. Came out of some tight trees on Mittersill with branches stabbed into the vents of my helmet.

 

[Snowlover]

If i'm following your logic, do you believe hockey players should not wear helmets as a hockey puck to the head you can just "sew up" and all the head injuries are caused by shaking of the brain so a hockey helmet will do no good?
BTW i don't wear a helmet. I don't ski tree's but if I did wear a helmet i'd would be a lot more apt to ski tree's thus increasing my danger imo. I'm sure helmets give alot of people a great sense of security thus taking more chances then they normally would. But i still might wear a helmet , i've never fell and hit my head before but if i did i'm sure a helmet would help cusion the blow.
I agree with you with taking it easy on the slopes will reduce alot of risk.

I know I said I was done, but I want to answer this question. A puck to the head is sharp/hard object with a high pounds per square inch of force. It will/can fracture a skull. When you fracture a skull you cause brain damage obviously, but in a different manner than shaking. A helmet will protect against fracture. That's why I used the example of a guy hitting me over the head with a hockey stick. A helmet is a MUST in ice hockey. It's completely different type of injury than falling on your head on soft snow. If you hit your head hard enough to fracture your skull on soft snow than the concussive forces will likely be fatal anyway. I don't see what the controversy here is. I've simply stated that helmets are overrated in their ability to protect in skiing falls by novices/people taking it easy. By all means, if you feel safer wearing a helmet than wear one. It does make you a "little" safer. It's just not this HUGE difference that people think it makes.

One of the misconceptions is that helmet is of biggest help to a novice and useless for someone doing big air in terrain park/high speeds. This is actually the opposite. The helmet is of more use for someone in terrain park because of the sharp/hard impacts that potentially exist in a terrain park. The terrain park is a very dangerous place. I call it the trauma park.

There are definitely some fluke type of falls that a helmet will help you with.
Example.... A helmet lowers injury risk in following type of events:

1)you fall on snow, than roll and hit a tree at low speed indirectly. ---If you're not charging and on wide trails this a big time fluke. If you don't go near the edge and don't really fast, very low probability.
2)All kinds of things in the terrain park(lip of pipe, rails/box's)--- Common
3)falling and cracking your head on a snow gun/lift tower that has no padding. All this stuff should be out of the way.
4)Somebody else is wearing a helmet and runs into you "head on head" and you're NOT wearing a helmet. Most of the force will transferred to you. That's the thing I'd be most worried about.

Again I look at what I'm doing on the mountain and make the calculation I'm messing around on small local hills around here to get some exercise so a helmet seems like a little much for ME. The only reason I even started talking about this is because of powder ridge's helmet rule. I don't care what anyone else wears. Stay safe out there.

 

[dlague]

Here is a simple test!

Get a hammer, hit yourself in the head with it - how did it feel?
Now put a helmet on, using the same hammer, hit yourself in the head again - now how did it feel?

Hammers that are around while skiing - lift bars, other people's skis, branches even an awkward tumble where the head hits the snow pack

I wear a helmet - not because I think I am safe at higher speeds but to provide some protection during the smaller/slower events. BTW, I actually find mine to be quite warm on those really cold days.

 

[Snowlover]

Here is a simple test!

Get a hammer, hit yourself in the head with it - how did it feel?
Now put a helmet on, using the same hammer, hit yourself in the head again - now how did it feel?
.

That's a skull fracture impact. Helmet absolutely protects against that type of impact. Please see my above post We posted at the same time.lol

 

[steamboat1]

I have nothing against wearing a helmet. I've been thinking of getting one myself one of these days. I guess I've been lucky since I've been skiing 53 years without one & haven't banged my head once. Yes I ski just about everything on piste & in the woods. Now if I could find something to protect my arms, wrists, fingers, ribs, legs, knees & ankles I would have been all over it years ago. Those are the only things I've hurt, some of them several times.

 

[Snowlover]

I have nothing against wearing a helmet. I've been thinking of getting one myself one of these days. I guess I've been lucky since I've been skiing 53 years without one & haven't banged my head once. Yes I ski just about everything on piste & in the woods. Now if I could find something to protect my arms, wrists, fingers, ribs, legs, knees & ankles I would have been all over it years ago. Those are the only things I've hurt, some of them several times.

If there should be any rule on a mountain for safety it would ban non-reasable snow blades(leg breakers) and make high quality wrist guards/tail bone pads mandatory for snowboarders.

 

[Snowlover]

Most likely injuries for skiing and snowboarding are broken wrists, leg fractures(greatly reduced by releasable bindings), ankle fractures(greatly reduced by hard boots), mcl/acl knee inury, and tail bone injuries.

 

[C-Rex]

No, helmets will not save you 100% of the time. Far from it. But there is a whole range of possible impacts where a helmet WILL save you. It's your brain, the most important organ in your body, why not do what you can to protect it? I, for one, don't want to be sitting in a hospital with brain damage, having a doctor tell me that it could have been avoided with a helmet, but I was more worried about fashion so now I look badass while licking a window in the lodge instead of getting back out there and riding.

 

[steamboat1]

Most likely injuries for skiing and snowboarding are broken wrists, leg fractures(greatly reduced by releasable bindings), ankle fractures(greatly reduced by hard boots), mcl/acl knee inury, and tail bone injuries.

I've done every one except the tail bone. Hard boots didn't prevent my ankle from being broken last year and yes my bindings did release immediately.