 Poster: A snowHead
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The only slight accident I have had in recent years (and I did something similar many years ago) involved my ramming my head into a hard bank (I was tree-skiing off piste rather fast and met a track thinly covered in powder with a ditch full of powder before it: result - both skis stopped suddenly). My head was OK but my neck was in pain for a while and my arms felt hot and very pins-and-needlesy for a shorter while. I presume I had crushed some nerves exiting my neck vertebrae.
After a few minutes I was able to ski on with only a slightly sore neck. I suppose if it had been worse I might have been paralysed.
Anyone done anything similar? How common is it? Would a helmet have made any difference?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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if you had some kind of whiplash then yes, a helmet would have made your head heavier and your neck hurt more.. i suggest in future you ski with some form of neckbrace.. just in case 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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No, I don't think it was whiplash, just a pile-driver end on collision (the other time years ago was whiplash). I just head-butted the edge of the path with the top of my head.
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Lady in my ski group last year, whilst off piste, fell onto a road head first. Helmet saved her skull but she sufferred whiplash. Skied the rest of the week in a soft neck brace. What was even more amazing was she was 70 and dropped down to my group because she couldn't keep up with the advanced off -pisters. 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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snowball, I guess the deformable liner of a helmet would have deformed on impact across the top of your head and taken some of the sting out of it.
Interesting point about whiplash. What is the mass of the average human head? Helmets seem to weigh between 0.8 and about 1.7 lbs from what I can gather. It would be interesting to know what %age increase in mass wearing a helmet would make. I assume the increase in momentum your neck muscles would have to deal with would be proportional, as momentum = mass x velocity (I think!).
So how much does the average head weigh?
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I fell (I think backwards from my toe edge) whilst learning to board, did a complete somersault and my head hurt for a short while and my neck for a few hours after. I hadn't been taught how to fall and made a completed dog's dinner of it, so I think it was worse than it could've been if I'd fallen properly (though at least people around me found my effort entertaining). A helmet would've stopped my head hurting but not my pride.
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