The Ski Helmet Debate

ir12daveor wrote:For me wearing a helmet on the slopes is a no brainer. With the speeds that people travel on skis a helmet is the first piece of equipment anyone should use. I work in sports injury research and regularly get to see papers on injury incidence. Helmets Work!

Ian Wickham wrote:I have always called myself a recreational skier who loves the mountains likes the odd black but not into all the daring stuff not really my cup of tea,
my opinion for what it is worth really comes down to how much of a sports person you have been in the past, for example like most I played a fair bit of football cricket and over the years and
have learnt how to fall, on one of my rare falls a couple of years ago a bush was just about covered over in the white stuff skis caught the bush and Ian goes into a head first summersault
my reflexes take over head is tucked in and I land on feet and bottom and am still here to tell the tale.
Mrs W never played any sports and very rarely falls, because of the type of skiers we are, we don't need helmets but that decision is purely up to the individuals.

Far Queue wrote:... it is not always about the person who is being careful. I have seen first hand the damage caused by out of control idiots hitting someone from behind at speed on a fairly "safe" piste.

I doubt that you would not consider insuring your car on the basis you consider yourself to be a good and safe driver.

FYI, I will be getting a helmet for this season.

Ian Wickham wrote:what I have learnt
over the years is as in life be aware of you're surroundings be looking over your shoulder it is what I teach my daughter to try and do.
If you are skiing a busy area or intersection caution must be taken at all times expect the unexpected, I would really like to find some data on injuries and skier experience and where the accident took place
e.g. piste,trees off piste but as of yet have not managed to collate any, in thirty years never had an accident or injury through skiing so caution when you ski, but enjoy your helmet and you're skiing :D

ir12daveor wrote:Nobody needs a helmet until the moment they really need one! I'd rather not need one but have it in the very few incidents I would really need to have it.

The kind of crash Ian described is a very normal thing if skiing on non prepared slopes. Your forward momentum and the torque generated from the skis stopping forces you into a roll. Thats great in most cases but what happens in the one case that there is a rock sticking up where you roll?

6 years ago I landed on my head. I was extremely lucky and didn't suffer any permanent injury, but it made me wake up very quickly to the need to have a helmet on the slopes. I went out and bought one immediately thanking the lucky stars that I had been seeing that I lived and learned from this lesson.

2 years ago I was the first person on the scene of two incidents where a skier in one case and a snowboarder in the other had banged their heads. Both were unconscious when I got to them. Neither were wearing a helmet. The first person came around within about a minute, and was taken away by the ski patrol. The second started seizing and had convulsions, after I opened his airway! (He hadn't been breathing!) The convulsions went on for about 30seconds, and it took him about 2-3 minutes before he came around!!! I left after the ski patrol arrived and I gave them all the information I had along with my contact details. Both these incidents happened with in a week of each other and either could have been fatal. Neither of these guys thought they needed a helmet before those incidents!

Last year there was a case publisised in the German speaking press where a German government minister had a crash on the piste with another holiday maker in an Austrian resort. Guess which one died?!

Take a look around in the lift lines. In the last 5-6 years there has been a huge change in the number of people wearing a helmet. I had to actually look for people not wearing helmets yesterday in the mountains rather then look for the people that were.

It is your prerogative not to wear a helmet if you don't want to, but the "I don't need to wear a helmet" case is Bullsh!t. Even if you don't think you ever fall yourself, there is always the chance of somebody else who will be wearing a helmet crashing into you at crazy speeds. Remember even average skiers these days will get speeds in excess of 50km/h (30mph) on the slopes, a large number of people do substantially more then that. No-one would question needing to have a helmet on a bike if travelling at this speed.

ise wrote:

Ian Wickham wrote:I would really like to find some data on injuries and skier experience and where the accident took place
e.g. piste,trees off piste but as of yet have not managed to collate any,

That's quite obviously not true, there's huge amounts of data on ski accidents and many, many studies specifically focussing on head injuries and/or helmets.

There seems to be some confusion that the probability of an event equates to the risk of it which is wrong. Blood curdling tales of collisions aimed at encouraging people to wear helmets aren't really helpful, in fact, most extreme collisions the outcome isn't going to be altered by wearing a helmet at all. Something between 80% and 90% of head injuries are non-serious if you looked at the data, only a small number are life threatening. OTOH, the main cause of death from skiing accidents is head injury, it's just not many people die recreational skiing.

The risk is probably more accurately stated as :

- moderate possibility of minor injury and a medium to high risk
- low possibility of major injury or fatality and a very high risk

There's not much to choose between the arguments a) you don't need a helmet because a serious head injury isn't likely and b) you do need a a helmet because a serious head injury is likely. That's why the protagonists just bang heads (see what I did there?) arguing with other without much illumination. You've got to think that most people helmets because they either are making a statement about hardcore they are or a complete misconception about the dangers of skiing.

NellyPS wrote:I was in two minds having never had the need for one in 20 years of skiing/boarding, but since Natasha Richardsons minor fall and sad death I have had second thoughts.

Bought my first helmet earlier this week. And I don't look like a cone head, I look more like this: http://blog.hostgator.com/images/mushroom.jpg

bandit wrote:I wear a helmet as I am a rad dudette, and need to because I ski steep stuff honest :twisted: