British skier dies from head-tree impact in Canada

A snowHead

I am not agsinst or pro helmet. Neither would I say others are wrong and that I am right.

I ride motorbikes as a lad and was working in my younger years on utilities sectors where all my colleagues and I spent our daily hours more on a motorbike than anything else. My view is based on 40 years motorcycling experience and I have served as Observer (assisting license holders to pass the Police's advanced motorcyclist test) in Institute of Advanced Motorists. I don't claim my experience enable me to say the right thing. It is just observation through life.

A skier or rider simply considers the level of risk for using a helmet. In motorcycling it is mandatory.

As I have seen sufficient number of years ( not a lot because UK passed the law in early 1970s but it was later in other countries) when motocyclists had been driving sensibly without using the helmet. I happen to believe a motocyclist if not a skier would likely to moderate his/her speed to take account of not wearing a helmet and that is not a bad thing and might be possibly to everybody's interest too because he is forced to take a "careful" position.

When I ski I usually accompany the wife and so I go slow as well. We wear Gortex hats and found it satisfactory in the coldest, the hottest and the wettest weather we have experienced. We probably look too old to wear a helmet because we never go fast. I could possible disappear leaving the wife behind and contact her in the mountains by the walkie talkie. Over the years I lost her a couple of times and now it is more important that she can go to any place with me together as a couple. We don't find wearing a helmet would gain us anything or feel threaten for not wearing one.

There are many things we go with our own conviction and do our own things, like not believing in mortgage, pension, going with package skiing holiday, state school education etc.

A snowHead

saikee, you still haven't bothered to answer my earlier question. Do you think motorcyclists should be banned from wearing full face helmets because it encourages them to go faster?

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uktrailmonster,

My posts suggest that making compulsory a motorcyclist wearing a helmet has led to motorcycles travelling at a much faster speed not physically possible when helmet was not worn.

Banning selectively full face helmets can cut down the speed if goggles are banned at the same time.

Cruisers like Harley Davsion and Honda Gold Wing travel at a substantial lower speed despite having bigger engines and their riders often do not use the full face helmets.

I really don't care if the helmet is banned, encouraged, used or ignored. I am just citing one of its development based on my own experience.

I owned a Honda Blackbird for 8 years got it when it was the most powerful production motocycle, 1100cc, 164 bhp, weighs 223 kg and capable of doing 180+ mph. I was genuinely worried for my life that I could get killed for not able to cope with such a breast. I nearly lost the rear twice by twisting the throttle normally but ignoring the wet condition of the road. That was why I enrolled myself with the IAM. I have thought hard why many born again bikers didn't make it and believe the mandatory helmet to be the main prime mover in the development.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

saikee, so if motorbike helmets had not been made mandatory, there would be no dangerously fast bikes on sale now and less bikers would be killed on the roads? That doesn't make any sense to me. To suggest that bike development is linked to the mandatory wearing of helmets is ridiculous. In fact I don't know why I'm even bothering to discuss the idea! Especially since it has virtually no relevance to skiing. Maybe if they made ski helmets mandatory, we'd all be thrashing around on jet powered skis in 25 years time Wink

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Although a rider can wear a helmet in order to drive fast, as one poster has substantiated this fact, it was not widespread and the motorcycle developement changed very little for years prior to the law came into effect.

I have already pointed out speed in skiing is limited by gravity.

I never said the same speed change will happen to skiing. You guys just imply it would and insist on the idea came from me.

I was just answering your question on banning full face helmet.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

Only the ones that employ instructors who get hit over the head by angry clients

[Sorry, Martin, I acknowledge that it was a serious question!]

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Helmets: always a good subject for firing up a thread.
I am definitley for helmets. I wear one. My kids wear them. I urge all skiers to wear them.
Be careful when you research this subject: helmets are not intended primarily to save lives - they save brains.
If the law doesn't make it compulsory then the insurance companies will.
I thought the turning point would be when European - expecially French - ski instructors started wearing them.
This season in Val d'Isere I saw my first two ESF instructors wearing helmets.
In a few years this debate about skiers and helmets will be considered as crazy as a debate about motorbikes and helmets.
(Cyclists and helmets remains a fascinating debate.)

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A practical problem that I'm hoping another glasses wearer has the answer to: OTG goggles over helmet even adjusted to the maximum put pressure on my glasses (at the nose) such that I was in pain that I wasn't prepared to put up with. Sad

Any suggestions other than contact lenses (my eyes tend to get very itchy and I had problems with lenses greasing up in the past - tho many years ago). OTG goggles with hat are fine but I would prefer to wear a helmet.

Late starter, you may need to try different goggles that will fit better with your helmet (or get a strap extender)

You know it makes sense.

Just wanted to say I love my lid, it's ventilated yet has furry ears Toofy Grin

- however BIG COMPLAINT! These furry ears actually contain speakers to plug in my iPOD which I think is UTTER MADNESS! Who on earth....? *snowboarder with music playing lid sits happily blocking piste*

WRT the furry ears, no hat has ever kept my ears so warm. As I said previously I bought my lid when nagged by locals in Banff. Helen bought one at the same time and on her last day wiped out on an easy blue and was quite dizzy and shaken, she is absolutely positive that without her new lid she'd have been hospital-bound not airport-bound!

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

So far I am unimpressed by my Scott helmet. I have yet to find a pair of goggles (including Scott ones) that feel comfortable with it. And it's construction seems very flimsy in comparison to military aircrew and motorcycling helmets - I wonder what practical benefit it really gives.

A snowHead

A snowHead

I started wearing a helmet after hitting a tree hard enough to snap my ski tip, this was also in Sunshine village in 2000. Playing tig in the trees with mates was not a good idea!!

My wife won't wear a helmet even though she has knocked herself out twice in her skiing career(since 1990), again one of those incidents was in Sunshine - maybe theres a pattern here?

One of my mates knocked himself out in Alp D'Huez last year a day after buying a helmet from me, he maintains that he might not have been here now were it not for the helmet.

Helmets definately reduce the risk of serious injury, in certain circumstances they may prevent death but when in a very quick impact there benefits are reduced. I had a high speed racing motorcycle crash in 2002 and the Docs said the helmet saved me, it was proper mashed and I didn't even have a headache! Loads of broken bones and in need of 8 operations but no headache. It's a personal thing, wear one if you want to.

RE Choice in retailers, we stock at least 7 different models (rising next year) becasue helmet sales are increasing annually. There will be a helmet to fit you if you shop around and take advice.

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Theres one guy who actually does need his head examining!!!

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Regarding a & b (and having a fair ammount of personal experience with high speed motorcycle craches - 17 in 4 years of 250 racing) that's crap. I raced in sponsored OGK lids and they were very light for the protection they offered.

Any helmet would cause neck truama if the speed was sufficient regardless of whether it was a uper light carbon affair or heavier fibfeglass construction. The fastest I have crashed is 120mph (into the old Knicker brook at Oulton Park) and I can assure you the helmet didn't break my neck and the retail cost of the lid was £169.99 - hardly a formula one budget!!!! It's not how fast you crash but what happens to you when you hit the floor. I walked away with little more than brusing from that one but permanently damaged my hands/wrists in an 75mph highside simply becasue I hit the floor in an awkward way.

Even given the above it's stil a personal choice on wearing a helmet for snowsports, wear one if you want too - no one point of view is right - I'll still be wearing mine though!!

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rivington alpine, maybe he thought you had to buy the helmet company? My ski helmet was about £70 and it seems fine for the job.

As I actually work in F1, I can comment on their helmets. The most expensive ones are made by Schuberth and cost around £15,000 each. But they do not fundamentally offer any better protection than a top of the range Arai or Bell bike helmet costing less than £500. They're just a fraction lighter, custom moulded etc. At least they all agree they should wear one Wink

After all it is free

This chatter is very similar to the dyed in the wool resistance when we introduced:

1. Car Seatbelts
2. ABS
3. SRS Airbags in cars

etc.

And it could be argued that the most effective (yet to be implemented) safety feature in a car would be a large spike in the centre of the steering wheel.

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Maybe we had all better start doing the
Head-Tree Impact Avoidance dance! wink

You know it makes sense.

Nick W,

Do you think it is just the statistic of ordinary death from heart attack that is taking place everyday everywhere?

There could be a higher percentage of players in old age there who can always offer you the similar statistic in whatever sport you put them.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

Nick W, I remember trying to resuscitate a collpased lawn bowls player in an ER in Sydney. We knew things were going badly when I intubated him, somebody compressed his chest and a couple of peas shot out of his lungs. Grim reaper 1, ER 0.

A snowHead

intubated?

A snowHead

uktrailmonster, stuck a plastic pipe into his lungs so we could ventilate them.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

More details have emerged about the skier who's the subject of this thread. Grant Alderman lived in Worthing, was most recently an IT consultant in Bournemouth and previously worked in Brighton.

According to this report in Sussex newspaper The Argus he was trying to avoid another skier when he left the edge of the run, so it's doubly tragic really.

Sounds like he was a very popular and generous guy. I guess it's possible he visited this website.

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Late starter,

My Oakley OTG goggles match perfectly with Boeri helmets. I have the Axis Performance and Tactic and maybe you can try that.

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i sometimes wear a helmet , but ive just been to chamonix last week and the weather was sooo hot that i didnt want to. i possibly should have although i didnt have any accidents, there is always a chance that you could have one. i think should were them because of the threat that other people cause too, there is always some lunatic that skis dangerously and could easily hit you...

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Late starter, Look at the thread on goggles with optical inserts, I've just used mine with a helmet on 2 trips and am very pleased.

On helmets I have 2 main reasons for wearing one (btw I find mine very confortable and not too hot once all of the removable bits (plugs, etc) are taken off:-

- self preservation
- I can justifiably refuse to allow my 11 year not to wear hers without being a hypocrite (helpful last week when hers pinched her ears, the hired one was a little large and "helmet hair" was a real issue).

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

David Goldsmith, I understand Grant worked at JP Morgan/ Chase bank here in Bournemouth and according to a colleague of his who is a friend of mine he was a very popular guy and was indeed avoiding another skier when the accident happened, he was apparently a good skier. Very sad indeed, my condolences to his family

After all it is free

saikee,

PamG,

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This debate seems to come up every season and people seem just as entrenched in their views as ever. However, while there are lots of good comments on both sides of the arguement, there are a lot of less smart ones as well!

To me, helmets are a personal choice based on risk assesment. The important thing is to make an informed decision, rather than either act out of ignorance or not at all. For me, skiing is an activity during which I have hit my head less than any opther sport in which I participate. In fact, I have fallen only 3 times in the last 5 years and cannot remember a head injury, however minor (maybe I had concusion wink

) I have therefore chosen not to wear a helmet. If I wore a helmet skiing, I should also wear one sailing, during which I have hit my head on many occasions including having been knocked semi-consious and also while walking down the street, where I have been tripped by somebody dropping their shopping and ended up in hospital with concusion!

You can guard against everything, but only some are really worthwhile. If you feel you are likely to have accidents where you bang your head, wear protection. That is why I wear a helmet for motorsport and mountain biking (off road).

However, I insist on my children wearing a helmet for skiing. So am I a hypocrate? Do I think the children's instructors should wear a helmet as an example? NO! NO! NO! There are many things in life that we make our children do for their own safety which an adult doesn't do and most children understand that. I teach my (young) children never to cross the road without holding an adult's hand, but they have seen me cross the road many times on my own!

Finally, I am interested that the suggestion that any link between helmets and neck injury is b#ll#cks. I haven't seen any figures and I know the helmet is light, but in every other sport it is a factor which is why I wear a HANS device for motorsport.

Help!!

British skier dies from head-tree impact in Canada

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