Question for the instructors - should we wear helmets when teaching?

A snowHead

This is slightly off the original topic (FWIW I tend to the view that instructors should when teaching children, personal choice with adults, but will be forced to wear them when teaching fairly soon).

I've been wearing helmets for cycling and skiing for some years now. I was always a little sceptical about how useful they were having never had a real blow to the head doing either sport and being fairly clear that in a big crash they wouldnt save you. Nevertheless, I decided to wear them because they might save me from merely unpleasant bashes or perhaps low level brain injury (concussion, memory loss, etc.).

In the last 12 months I have trashed two helmets cycling (I cycle commute). Both times I came off due to a front wheel skid on diesel at about 20 mph - fairly dramatic as you'll know if its ever happened to you. Both times the helmets were crushed and split around the temple. I'm not saying that the helmets saved my life but I'm clear that they would have been really nasty blows to the head.

Now generally the environment around you is harder when cycling than skiing. And I'm not in favour of compulsion for either sport (children and racing apart) but I just wanted to say that I'm now very clear that helmets can make a very useful difference in some accidents!

BTW, my hearing is not fantastic (mis-spent youth) but I find that my ski helmet doesn't make it noticeably worse. I was expecting it to but in practice not really.

J

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

skimottaret,

Head injuries:

http://www.ski-injury.com/specific-injuries/head

And specifically about helmets:

http://www.ski-injury.com/prevention/helmet

Quote from the above article:

"So, whilst helmets may help reduce the incidence of more minor head injuries and lacerations they are less able to protect the foolhardy skier who pushes his or her limits and who (inadvertently) ends up wrapping themselves around a tree. To give a stark example, biomechanics have demonstrated that in order to protect the head against a direct impact blow at 30 mph, with currently available materials, a helmet would need to be at least 18cm thick, 50cm wide and weigh 5kg+. Hhhmm….stylish. Radar data collected from ski areas suggests most intermediate skiers regularly travel at between 24-38 mph."

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achilles, not sure how you leaped to that conclusion. I'm mildy amused you would think me daft enough to rank guides according to their headgear choices - I merely have a high degree of respect for the people Skierslodge have guiding. I suspect that their other clients share this and think this knocks through onto client behaviour in a range of ways to do with safety, not just helmet use. In the helmet case I think this would probably be true for other mountain professionals if they chose to recommend them and/or wore them themselves. That doesn't mean I think they should, I just think role modelling works. People talk about helmet use being a "personal choice" but it is not a choice made devoid of context or external influences.

JT, I'm pretty sure its the done thing over there. All my group plus guides last year were in helmets and they include helmet hire in the price along with tranceiver etc. That said, I've lost the booking terms and conditions so I am not sure if they police it in the same way they mandate tranceiver use.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

gorilla, Hired 2 guides direct and neither wore or mentioned helmets... haven't been down there this year tho

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I must admit to having taken my fair share of purlers on the slopes, one of which I felt my head go against the ground on and that, for me at least would justify my decision to wear one. However, I've also been surprised at how many times I've been pleased to have it on when I've just coshed my head - maybe I'm just clumsy, but I frequently collide with the bar of the chair lift with my head, I've juggled with my skis as I've carried them and belted my head with them, I've collided with the kids poles whilst helping with the skis and done numerous other silly things that have made me pleased to have it on my head. I guess its still inexperience with handling the kit, but instructors also deal with beginners who flap around with strange poles and skis, are liable to juggle with chair lifts and release hold of pomas at in-opportune moments, I'm surprised that a sense of 'self preservation' doesn't prevail when it comes to the 'should I wear a helmet for this lesson' choice Laughing

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Megamum, maybe without a helmet you'd learn to be less clumsy more quickly? Wink

After all it is free

rob@rar, Either that or it would knock some sense into me - I guess either option could be beneficial Laughing

Megamum, I expect to get whacked on the head by a poma about once a season. Having fallen off horses onto my head most of my young life, it doesn't seem like much. Woe betide any beginner that whacked me with their skis though. (Anyway, my students are better trained!) Laughing

Ah - meant to say that the one serious accident I had (got skied into and jaw broken in 3 places) wouldn't have been in any way changed by helmet wearing. In fact if he'd been wearing one I'd probably have been hurt worse. If we'd both been wearing them we'd both have been hurt worse - face to face contact you see. Now a slalom helmet would have been some use ..... wink

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Mind you in terms of dangerous lifts having experimented with a T bar last February I have to say that these seem ruddy lethal in terms of potential danger. Talk about recoil esp. for the last person off. Def. helmet territory. Also, I also found that it was quite possible to hit your head on the central bar as I looked to see where it was in relation to where I was standing.

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The Canadian Ski Coaches Federation has now recommended that all coaches in an Alpine Canada sanctioned program wear a helmet when coaching. Whilst I always wear a helmet when free skiing with my athletes however when it comes to gate training I don't wear a helmet.

Most club programs in Canada make it mandatory for coaches to wear helmets when coaching. If the kids have to wear a helmet to ski then why shouldn't the coaches. Its also mandatory to wear helmets whilst participating in any CSCF course.

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Megamum, is there any video footage of your various trials? Toofy Grin

Hurtle, Luckily NOT!! Between getting belted with the central pole whilst looking for it (the T piece) to sit on, and getting my backside free of the slight curve they are made with when I dismounted I determined that they were most awkward thing I'd used to get up the mountain on. I think it was more luck than judgement that I didn't take a purler on the dismount, but there were times (most times actually) when it wasn't pretty!! Me and T bars = helmets, I think!! And that was travelling with someone experienced who was getting off second and dealing with getting rid of the thing at the top. Heaven knows how I would have got on travelling solo or with my short offspring. Roll on VT at Easter with its bubbles, gondolas and chairs.

You know it makes sense.

Megamum, T-bars are always bad, regardless of what protection you use. Best to avoid them if you can.

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

Megamum, there is knack to using T bars; I seem to have at last developed it, but I don't know what it is. For years, I hated the things like poison, and avoided them unless it was absolutely impossible not to. Now, they hold no fears, and I go up whistling a happy tune or chatting amusingly to my companion (I even managed a comparison of St Anton and Kitzbuhel with Obertauern in German this year, and I don't even speak German!). It must be familiarity, I suppose. The OL has undergone the same epiphany; she'll even go up with me now.

A snowHead

T-bar dismounts are the trickiest part (maybe except for riding with a child under 4 foot or a 6 foot 6 giant of a ski racer). Best to agree with the person you're riding with who is going to get off first, then pull yourself slightly off the 'seat' of the t-bar and ski away or push the t-bar away from you if it's an uphill dismount; if it's a downhill dismount just ski away from it.

A snowHead

rob@rar, It's amazing how many people who are getting off first refuse to let go of the thing though! Shocked

'Let go and ski away tot he right/left' - LET GO - LET GO - LET GOOOOOOO Shocked

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easiski,

Yes, that's right.

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What I found made the dismount awkward was the subtle curve in the bar that keeps you on. I couldn't shake the sensation that it would be easier getting off a perfectly straight bar - the curve seemed to catch on your buttock/clothing. By a slight modification I wondered if it could be made easier. Maybe if the bar could just be rotated a 1/4 turn perhaps by sleeving an outer bar over an inner one, which locked in place by a simply freed mechanism - push of a button at the end maybe, it could just tilt the curve slightly downwards as the dismount point was reached and make it easier to ski away from.

I intend to avoid them in the future if possible to do so. Evil or Very Mad

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well its official, all instructors at Hemel will be wearing helmets at all times even including when free skiing... not such a bad thing and will get me a little better acquainted with my helmet Blush

Adults in lessons up to level 4 (rec standard) and for under 16's helmets will be mandatory along with anyone race training or doing freestyle.

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Interestingly there's a lot of talk amongst the British Morzine / Avoriaz instructors I know about wearing helmets.

I'm not sure what's prompted it, but I've had four helmet-related discussions with instructors in as many days.

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FlyingStantoni, recent events meaning it's in the media and hence a topic raised by clients?

After all it is free

Megamum, because of that slight curve I find it easier to pull myself forward by grabbing the central part of the T just at the point of dismount. This means that there's little or no pressure on my backside from the t-bar and I'm free to ski away sideways without getting hooked by the T.

Are there T-bars in Moerlialp? The only time I ride a T-bar these days is pre-season on the glacier in Tignes. Nowhere else I ski uses this form of uplift.

skimottaret, the line seems to be that Hemel is "requesting" all instructors to wear a helmet. Wonder what will happen if someone refuses?

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rob@rar, tons of the bloody things in Davos/Klosters, unfortunately. (T-bars I mean, not helmets.) Interestingly in sunny Les Arcs last week, lots of snowboarders were wearing helmets (really a lot) and few English geriatrics like me, but otherwise nobody. And a damn stupid suntan I've now got, to show for it! Laughing

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rob@rar, I'll try that.

Yes, there are T bars there - the routes to the highest points on the only two skiable sides of the area are only accessible via a T bar. You can only access the blue by the chair lift, to reach any of the reds and blacks you need to use the two T bars that take you up high. One is, I think at least, very long and the other is, by my standards, very steep, though shorter. Though strangely I think I found the steeper one easier to ride which surprised me - the two dismounts being equally awkward as there was no difference in the design used - though it has to be said there was at least enough space at the top to give me the time to deal with it.

From a helmet perspective the recoil on them once they are let go certainly seems sufficient to do mischief if it were to catch you - it def. did to get out of the way of the dismount area asap once off them. I have a new found admiration for the instructors of kids who are learning the lift and stand in the recoil area to make sure they all get off all the ones I saw had their helmets on - as I say I think if I was in their position I would want them on for self preservation.

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Why is there no "Question for the Helmets: Should we be Instructing While Teaching?" thread? Puzzled

rob@rar, read your email from SnowCentre wink

You know it makes sense.

Going back to the subject of instructors and helmets:
Can I ask, why do none of the schools insist on their instructors wearing helmets from an employers liability angle? In construction we issue all our employees with PPE and insist they acknowledge recieving it and wear it on site. I'ld love to say we do this out of caring concern for our workers but the truth is I just don't want to get sued and loose my home when s**t comes down after an accident happens (as they do inevitably on building site, and ski slopes). I'm surprised that ski schools aren't covering their backs in a similar way, they operate within the same litigious societies.

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

skimottaret, I did, that's where I got the word "requesting" from. It doesn't say "requiring" so I wonder if anyone will refuse to comply with the request.

midgetbiker, maybe there is few or no examples of instructors suing their employers, or perhaps the fact that ski schools don't control the environment that their instructors work in has something to do with it?

A snowHead

rob@rar, hmmm public sector vs.. private sector request vs require... wink

A snowHead

rob@rar, it's got to be the former (but how long can that last). Whilst I take your latter point about the enviroment, as a specialist trade subbie on site I don't control the enviroment (the main contractor, or evil fitout company spyderjon wink

does) but what I have to do is make sure I provide all practicable protection to my lads to maximise their safety within that enviroment.
IMHO it can't be that long before the family of some unfortunate instructor injured or killed in an accident (their fault or not) sues his/her employer for not taking all reasonable steps to ensure their employees safety (ie give them and making them wear a helmet). Even if it doesn't happen I'm suprised the fear of it happening isn't pushing ski schools (or their insurance carriers) to act on compulsion.

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

midgetbiker, I'm sure that day will come, just not too sure when. Where will it end though? Body armour next?

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rob@rar, thinking about this a little more - any slope (certainly within the Uk) must have to do a risk assessment on their activities, the fact that after doing that assessment they don't insist on everyone (employee or client) wearing a helmet means by extension that either they assert that helmets do not protect a skiers head in the event of a fall or that they assess the risk of a head injury on their slope to be so slight as to not require mitigating measures to be put in place.
Any H&S professionals care to differ?

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

Spyderman, midgetbiker,

Please, Please, Please do not let us get into all that H & S stuff.

If someone comes for a lesson should i ask them for written proof of their competanace, insurance policy, COSH documents for any suntan lotions they may have, etc etc. Should they have an induction before a lesson??

After all it is free

stewart woodward, Regulations are very different for working indoors to on a mountain. If you want someone to work in a fridge, you must provide adequate clothing to keep them warm, plus periods and an area to allow them to warm up, if it's outside however then that's nature and you don't have to provide anything. No different to working in a cold storage facility.
As for a induction before a lesson, I'm sure you do that anyway. Do you not ask your clients about any previous injuries, medical conditions, are they asthmatic, etc.

H & S whether you like it or not and I'm not a big fan of writing Risk Assessments, is part of working life now.

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midgetbiker, Yes, insulated clothing is part of the PPE for working in a refrigerated environment, together with limits on time spent in the fridge,dependent on temperature, warming period requirements, exactly the same as working in an Ice Cream factory.

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Question for the instructors - should we wear helmets when teaching?

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