Crashes suck. Post-concussion syndrome is a royal bitch. GoPro hit snow first, pushed helmet off head, and forehead hit snow.
Note to self: GoPro front mounts are hazardous as shit to the cervical spine. Don't mount them there.
This was with a helmet.
You're right Tog, the general consensus amongst helmet wearers is its better than nothing, and while that might be true, the manufacturers capitalize on that by making them cheaper and cheaper and charging more and more. I'm not a helmet NAZI but there really should be someone to answer to for the crap they sell.
This is why we have such poor helmets.
The protective quality of helmets has gone down as more people wear them. Not up. The price has probably gone up also. How odd.
But, this is a good thing because it's "a helmet" and it's better than nothing. Great. 
Imagine if safety restraints in cars got worse as seatbelt use became the law.
It's a joke, but everyone feels great because they're helmets.
Wearing a helmet does several things:
1. Makes me feel safer - which, in turn, makes me ski with more abandon. (I can see that if it doesn't make you feel safer - it won't have that effect)
2. Makes my head, ears, neck and cheeks warmer.
3. If I crash in a way that would make my head hit my bindings, a stump or some other sharp thing - the hard shell will protect me from getting impaled.
4. If I crash in a way that would hit my head hard against the ground, a rock or tree - hard shell will protect my head from a bad contusion - and the deformation of the structural parts of the helmet will absorb some of the impact - thereby lessening the jarring effect on my noggin.
5. Even if the helmet only helps once a decade or so - I am glad that it is there when my head falls on, into or against my bindings, a tree, a stump, a rock, a pointed stick or anything else that might hurt worse without the helmet.
6. And it keeps my head warm.
I have also taken to wearing a back protector and shorts with hip pads. I at least feel better - the back protector keeps my back warmer - the hip protection shorts keep my upper legs warmer and I am somewhat protected when I fall - and protected against really bad awkward falls where a rock or my bindings or someone elses bindings or a rock or tree or pointed stick are between my spine and the ground.
Originally Posted by Tog 
The protective quality of helmets has gone down as more people wear them. Not up. The price has probably gone up also. How odd...
I think the issue is that the safety standard for ski helmets is fairly vague, due in no small part to the helmet manufacturers wanting to actually sell their product. Helmet manufacturers can certainly build a lid that meets more stringent standards (e.g. DOT or Snell Foundation), but said helmets aren't as light in weight or well ventilated, which are two selling points to folks who hesitate to buy a lid - and if the helmets aren't attractive to their target market, they won't sell, etc. That's why the CPSC standard (in the USA) isn't all that tough: the CPSC balances the commercial needs, as well (ah, the almighty dollar and its influence).
I remember the old Snell-certified ski helmets from Bell (the SR-1 and SR-2, one being full-face, the other not). They weren't the lightest lids, but weren't bad, either. Both had tension-woven fiberglass shells (built to "explode" away from the wearer on hard impact) with EPS and foam rubber liners that had a fleece coating for comfort. There were no vents, save for on the facemask of the full-face model. The strap was ballistic nylon with a double-D-ring closure.*
And these helmets worked, though they were far from "sexy," and the full-face model's facemask would often slice-and-dice the wearer's face if crashed into with any speed. However, they were very, very protective for the wearer.
And they would sell like lead balloons in today's market.
I think there is a market for lightweight-yet-more-protective helmets, without a doubt. Technology has improved since the days of the Bell SR-series lids, and the same level of protection - if not better- could be had with a lighter weight than the helmets of the 1980s. But with all the tech investment comes increased cost, which factors heavily in a sport that's already prohibitively expensive for most (even for enthusiasts).
Do I think that the lower-end, lighter-weight helmets work? Sure, but they're not built for the high-speed, high-impact world of racing - and that's why there are racing helmets made for said purpose. Are all the racing helmets as safe as they could be? Likely not. And until there is a more stringent standard applied across the board, they won't be.
Just my $0.02 - YMMV.
* - I think that the problem seen where racers have crashed and lost their helmets would be solved with a re-introduction of the double-D-ring closure in place of the Fastex buckle that's more commonly used these days. While the release-on-certain-kinds-of-impact aspect of the Fastex is good in some situations (e.g. when the helmet gets caught it allows the wearer to keep moving and may prevent spinal injury or "hangman's death"), it also isn't as robust as the double-D in terms of pure retention.
This is where the conversation needs to shift to. Arguing over whether one should wear a helmet or not makes almost no difference
in getting people to wear them. Just give it up. Meanwhile, making self righteous points about how "dumb" people are who don't wear helmets makes absolutely no difference at all to the safety of those who do wear them.
If we think wearing a helmet is about safety, and we spend all sorts of time arguing with others about how unsafe skiing without them is, then why are we so concerned with the comfort of a helmet? All this "it's light, I love it" as if they wouldn't wear the freaking thing if it weighed several ounces more yet had 4 times the protection. It's totally hypocritical. The end result is always "it's safer than a hat".
There are not a lot of helmets I've seen that I'd say are impressive as far as protection goes. Even basic convenience things are getting worse.
Poc starts making helmets that don't even have any goggle retention. Oh, you just use straps with silicone on them. Goggle retention in general has gotten worse over the years. These design issues were solved years ago but they keep getting thrown out.
The areas of improvement in helmets are lightness and ventilation. Apparently, this is all we care about, yet we spend pages and pages telling people to wear helmets for safety reasons. "You could Die!", "You could become a vegetable!". I guess it's ok if the helmet is light enough that one only become half a vegetable? Half dead? Hey, at least it's comfortable. "It's better than nothing".
The only thing really worth arguing over, as much as these threads are entertaining in themselves, is safety standards. At least that is productive. Trying to convince others to wear a helmet they don't want to wear won't make a bit of difference to the safety of those who actually do wear them. Meanwhile, the kids who everyone pretty much agrees should wear them, aren't getting safer helmets.
I think the majority was opposed to seat belts, and even air bags (the thought of this thing exploding in your face didnt seem to good). Yet they are law and they do save lives every day. Same can be said for helmets. The guy who crashes bad and lives to tell about it doesnt necessarily get written up or get seen by a doc or helped by patrol. If our helmets are crappy and do help at least a little imagine if they were actually designed to provide real protection and not just be "me-too" possessions to put stickers on.
All true and it is such a catch 22 because we keep buying hemets so the industry keeps making what they think we want but the only helmets available are of the only quality they make.
So it is as if without government intervention making helmets mandatory, the industry will keep making the current "low quality" designs because that is what sells. so that is all we can get.
The only research meaningful to the manufactuers is market research and they think all we want is lighter and cool colors or a fake leather sheath.
So what would ever motivate millions of dollars into scientific resarch?
I mean we probably shouldnt all put on football helmets as that may prove to be evern more dangerous than no helmets....so we need a helmet that is between what we have now and motorcycle weight.
It woudl be reallly risky for some company to do this as there is no evidence that anyone would buy em. What do you think would happen to the young exec who proposes a new cool heavy weight helmet designed to increase protection and still fit the demograpthic....he'd prob lose his job.
After checking around on the Internet it seems that only around 10 percent of all skiing injuries are head injuries, while around 25 percent of all skiing injuries are knee injuries.
It appears from this and other helmet threads that there is a general groundswell of emotion and support for reducing head injuries by wearing helmets. OTOH, there have been far fewer threads on knee safety promotion equipment like special bindings and boots, and those topics have always been met with even more naysaying than helmets. Yet, I know a lot more people that have sustained knee injuries than I know that have sustained head injuries. Maybe what we really need is a Knee-Helment to make skiing even safer...
You can heal and or replace the knee.....in a worst case scenario you can even chop off your leg and go on to live a full life. You damage your brain even a little bit and the effects are earth shattering for you and your loved ones. Not worth the risk.
Wait, are we now saying ski helmets are cheap??? When I brought that point up many pages ago, somebody said that ski helmets are designed to be cheap so they will shatter with one giant blow.
And the one I was wearing in my most recent bad crash (captured in video I posted) did not even so much as dent as a forward slingshot effect thrust my head into the cat-track. It banged me up like hell, but I got up and was barely able to ski away.
I guess what I am saying is that for one of those things to actually crack, the impact would have to be SEVERE. Furthermore, we can't be skiing around with a massive object on our heads... wouldn't that contribute to neck issues?
Chris, I dont think it is the head injuries that get people going but rather it is the brain injuries that really cause the chill. They are devastating to all involved.
10% is a large number of injuries, thousands per year? Seems high.
But knees can be fixed, brains not so much.
I ski with a custom fitted knee brace that costed about the same as my skis. But the probelm with the rest of the body is the twisting torque that damages joints like spine, elbow, wrist...and a pad wont help that. I suppose people hurt themselves by banging into objects ala knee caps, shoulders I guess but those are much less frequent than ligament damage to the joints....yeah?
How about like a big bouncy ball with your skis out the bottom....
Cheap in construction and engineering.....not cheap in price....well maybe relatively speaking when compared to real helmets; those the meet SNELL and DOT standards. But not always, some brands charge as much for ski helmets as real helmet would cost.
Chris, I dont think it is the head injuries that get people going but rather it is the brain injuries that really cause the chill. They are devastating to all involved.
10% is a large number of injuries, thousands per year? Seems high.
But knees can be fixed, brains not so much.
I ski with a custom fitted knee brace that costed about the same as my skis. But the probelm with the rest of the body is the twisting torque that damages joints like spine, elbow, wrist...and a pad wont help that. I suppose people hurt themselves by banging into objects ala knee caps, shoulders I guess but those are much less frequent than ligament damage to the joints....yeah?
How about like a big bouncy ball with your skis out the bottom....
I know a LOT of people that ski and I don't even know a single person that has had a serious head injury (one that materially affected their life), yet I know dozens of people who had knee injuries that materially affected their lives. When I say life affecting I mean having to have knee surgery to the tune of $20K, hobbling around in a brace for many months, getting detained in airports on business travel while on crutches, missing an entire off-season of golf, and taking a couple of ski seasons just to get back where you were skiing.
Yeah, I personally had my bell rung pretty good, and got knocked unconscious for approx. 10 seconds from a collision while skiing - but I came to, put my skis back on and skied unattended to the bottom where I took 10 minutes off from skiing with my friends and had a drink of water during my "time-out" - and then I went right back out and skied the rest of the day just fine with my friends. That's a helluva lot less life-affecting than when I ruptured my ACL skiing and dealt with a couple of years of getting back to where I was, and all of the hassles in between. Heck, I'm the only person I even know that has had any kind of head injury, and even though I got knocked completely unconscious it was NOT in the least bit a life-affecting injury and thus not what I would call a serious injury. Where are all of these brain dead folk? How many are we talking about? I bet if you line them up end to end it will be a mighty short line compared to to the line of those that have had their lives affected by ACL/MCL/PCL injuries...
Put into perspective Chris, most skiers in the World Cup, aka the best skiers in the world, have had some sort of knee injury and or knee surgery. No skier that sustains permanent brain damage if they survive does much of anything much less ski.
Richie, How many of these seriously brain injured people are we talking about? I heard of Sonny Bono, the Kennedy kid, and the actress Natasha Richardson that ended up dead, but how many others with life affecting head injuries from skiing? Statistically that number seems rather insignificant to the population at large - especially if we factor in every day things like driving a car and walking across the street. I think that the number is probably only about as significant as those unfortunate people that get hit by lightning each year. Why make such a fuss for such a rare and unusual occurrence? More importantly, why not make such a fuss for much more common and frequent life affecting injuries?
I know a LOT of people that ski and I don't even know a single person that has had a serious head injury (one that materially affected their life), yet I know dozens of people who had knee injuries that materially affected their lives. When I say life affecting I mean having to have knee surgery to the tune of $20K, hobbling around in a brace for many months, getting detained in airports on business travel while on crutches, missing an entire off-season of golf, and taking a couple of ski seasons just to get back where you were skiing.
Yeah, I personally had my bell rung pretty good, and got knocked unconscious for approx. 10 seconds from a collision while skiing - but I came to, put my skis back on and skied unattended to the bottom where I took 10 minutes off from skiing with my friends and had a drink of water during my "time-out" - and then I went right back out and skied the rest of the day just fine with my friends. That's a helluva lot less life-affecting than when I ruptured my ACL skiing and dealt with a couple of years of getting back to where I was, and all of the hassles in between. Heck, I'm the only person I even know that has had any kind of head injury, and even though I got knocked completely unconscious it was NOT in the least bit a life-affecting injury and thus not what I would call a serious injury. Where are all of these brain dead folk? How many are we talking about? I bet if you line them up end to end it will be a mighty short line compared to to the line of those that have had their lives affected by ACL/MCL/PCL injuries...
Is your point that head injuries are not common, or are you doubting their existence as you personally don't know many "dead folk."??? Some girl I didn't know from my high school died in WV as she skied into a tree recently. Maybe a helmet would have saved her. There are many more who mean nothing to us, but mean something to those they are close to.
I think alot of people have mentioned in this thread that they themselves or someone they knew was saved by a helmet. And I think we all agree knees are more commonly injured.
Also I think it is great you survived your head injury, but that is an "n of one," and there are many kinds of falls where the head is vulnerable to serious damage. It would be stupid to not wear a helmet. If you are just saying all falls are not life-threatening, that is correct at face value. But the same could be said for falls torquing the knee. By volume, most don't tear ACLs (at least with modern bindings).
Let's all remember that while we here are mostly accomplished/experienced skiers (varying from accomlished cruisers to ripping experts), we are still just one caught-edge away from being thrust into the woods or off a ledge.
most skiers in the World Cup, aka the best skiers in the world
I will agree to disagree with you on this as I clearly don't equate racing prowess with skiing prowess. World Cup Racing and Skiing are two quite different disciplines, and many that I feel are the best skiers in the world, are not racers at all - skiing is about negotiating all terrain and all conditions, without a stopwatch as the arbiter...
Richie, How many of these seriously brain injured people are we talking about? I heard of Sonny Bono, the Kennedy kid, and the actress Natasha Richardson that ended up dead, but how many others with life affecting head injuries from skiing? Statistically that number seems rather insignificant to the population at large - especially if we factor in every day things like driving a car and walking across the street. I think that the number is probably only about as significant as those unfortunate people that get hit by lightning each year. Why make such a fuss for such a rare and unusual occurrence? More importantly, why not make such a fuss for much more common and frequent life affecting injuries?
Is your point that head injuries are not common, or are you doubting their existence as you personally don't know many "dead folk."??? Some girl I didn't know from my high school died in WV as she skied into a tree recently. Maybe a helmet would have saved her. There are many more who mean nothing to us, but mean something to those they are close to.
OK, the wise Internet says 1000 people each year are struck by lightning, with 100 of them ending up dead and 900 seriously injured. How does that compare to skiing head injuries? As I initially suggested, Lightning is a lot riskier than skiing head injuries - yet no one is making a big fuss about grounding rods, etc.
POC helmets are designed to shatter on impact. It is a way to transfer the forces without fuckin up your head. I had an incident a couple of years ago where my helmet saved me from some serious damage after having a bad landing off of a jump while on my SG skis. Head smashed into the tails of my skis, and then threw me back up. Aside from recovering from the fall and the damage that eating it at that speed could have done, my head was saved from the initial impact on the ice/ski tails. Had to get a new helmet (got a POC a week later for Christmas), and the skis still show some impact wear on the tips from the landing.
Fatalities - According to the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA): During the past 10 years, about 40.6 people have died skiing/snowboarding per year on average. During the 2009/10 season, 38 fatalities occurred out of the 59.8 million skier/snowboarder days reported for the season. Twenty-five of the fatalities were skiers (18 male, 7 female) and 13 of the fatalities were snowboarders, (12 male, 1 female). Among the fatalities, 19 of those involved were reported as wearing a helmet at the time of the incident. The rate of fatality converts to .64 per million skier/snowboarder visits.
OK then Richie, there are good metrics for deaths - and that should reasonably correllate with serious injuries.
Lightning results in MORE THAN TWICE the number of annual deaths as skiing. Note also that wearing a helmet does NOT eliminate the risk of death, and clearly did not for the 19 dead mentioned above. Why are we making such a fuss over something LESS THAN HALF AS LIKELY as being struck by Lightning?
Brain matter destroying skiing injuries are at least in part avoidable, mother nature for the most part is not. Only people that ski, for the most part, will be exposed to injuries from skiing. Everyone that is on this earth is exposed to lightening, so the general population is far more likely to get struck by lightening. There are some folk from the old country that do avoid lightening though.
Again we go back to those that crashed hard and lived to tell, often do not report to anyone or get treated. Even those that crash and are dazed may not. Only deaths are sure to be accounted for. My bad accident resulting in broken bones did not get reported to Hunter mountain as such....at least not at the severity that it had turned out to be.
Fatalities - According to the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA): During the past 10 years, about 40.6 people have died skiing/snowboarding per year on average. During the 2009/10 season, 38 fatalities occurred out of the 59.8 million skier/snowboarder days reported for the season. Twenty-five of the fatalities were skiers (18 male, 7 female) and 13 of the fatalities were snowboarders, (12 male, 1 female). Among the fatalities, 19 of those involved were reported as wearing a helmet at the time of the incident. The rate of fatality converts to .64 per million skier/snowboarder visits.
OK then Richie, there are good metrics for deaths - and that should reasonably correllate with serious injuries.
Lightning results in MORE THAN TWICE the number of annual deaths as skiing. Note also that wearing a helmet does NOT eliminate the risk of death, and clearly did not for the 19 dead mentioned above. Why are we making such a fuss over something LESS THAN HALF AS LIKELY as being struck by Lightning?
@ Richie,
You are correct, many crashes don't get reported to ski patrol; none of mine did, even that one way back in the day when I knocked myself out skiing over a wind ridge, unless the ski instructor I took my first lesson from later on when I figured I was too woozy to make much of the day and may as well shut 'er down and take a lesson reported it. The problem with your spotter fall, was that you wanted the run too badly; you should have given up on it, skied up to spotter and said, "Hey thanks, but you're in my line." I've been skiing as fast as possible on runs I can see around the corners and drops on for decades with no crashes (after that one knockout taught me to pre-run the course so I knew where the bumps were).
@ all.
The trouble with making a helmet that withstands high speed impacts is it won't be as effective at low speed impacts. The trouble with making a helmet, withstand multiple impacts makes it less able to withstand a big one-time impact while transmitting less energy to the brain. Just witness the Snell - DOT only arguments with motorcycle helmets. At least if they had standards available we could choose.
BTW I don't ski any differently with or without a helmet. When I'm skiing, I'm not even aware of what I'm wearing.
(edited for spelling, grammar and comprehension)
Chris,
please notice that as your sample population increases by reading the antedotes adn personal experiences in this thread, so does the number of accidents emerge. Your analogy to lightening is interesting but rest assured that when I know I will out on a river bed in my little boat for a few days, my eye is on that sky because being down in that valley, the lightening comes on you fast as your window to the sky is limited. And climbers would tell you same thing about being exposed to lightening on mountain sides.
Every prudent and knowledgeable outdoor adventurer watches for dangers and protects themselves accordingly.
Just to reiterate for your benefit, I am a Speech Pathologist specializing in neurological impariment and therapy and I see Traumatic Brain Injuries up close all the time for the past 30 years. During my career I have seen the extreme devastation to the individual and perhaps even more tragcially to their families. I have followed patients from bedside during the first few days after injury all the way through say 10-20 years post trauma and brother man you have to understand that the effects of brain injury are like no other injury that could be imagined.
Can you imagine visual disturbances, loss of the ability to understand the words people are saying to you, loss of your own ability to speak to meet even your basic needs, uncontrollable anger, rage, wheelchair bound, loss of memory and swallowing impairment?
And that is just the physical aspect. The loss of income, loss of career development, loss of social place, effect of disfigurment, the feeling of loss felt by parents, sibs,aunts,uncles, cousins...and the effect of loss on society at large when we loose a productive member and must take care of this godforsaken individual for the rest of their natural life.
It is not like amputation or freekin ACL injury. Yes it is true my MCL/ACL injuries have changed my life but compared to what Brain injury would do, it is not even worth the mention.
And even the sort of more mild brain injury that goes unreported and un-noticed by the ski patroll-those on the order of concussion, also have effects on the cognitive abiliites of those who have suffered as few as two mild brain insults in a life time. These injuries dont even show up on stats.
The information on mild concussion is still emerging but we know that highschool sports brain injuries can and do have lasting effects on the ability of the young individual to function with normal cognition simply after getting thier "bell rung" a few times. And this sort of injury is so common that most are not even reported to the family physican, yet the effect remains.
And that is where clear minded conversations about helmets begin. There is no comparison to lightening strikes or knee injuries.
Again we go back to those that crashed hard and lived to tell, often do not report to anyone or get treated. Even those that crash and are dazed may not. Only deaths are sure to be accounted for.
Agreed, we only really know the number of deaths for sure - which is exactly why I used that number to compare with being struck and killed by Lightning (which is OVER TWICE AS LIKELY from the annual numbers for both situations). Ask anyone you know or meet what they think the chance of being struck by Lightning is, and I guarantee you that they will say it is very rare indeed.
This is one reason why I would never badger someone that doesn't wear a helmet, that they should wear one - and one reason why I promote free choice.
Myself, I do actually wear a helmet - but that doesn't mean I'm going to take an evangelist's stance and badger hat wearers about helmet wearing. Truth be told, the one time I was knocked unconscious in a collision (remember I'm the only person I actually know that got knocked out skiing), I was hit from behind and landed on my chin. I had leg bruises from the collision and I was knocked unconscious for approx. 10 seconds from what is termed a "dental concussion" (landed on my chin and my teeth slammed together slightly chipping a lower tooth, directing impact energy into my head). My helmet didn't help me, didn't prevent anything, or even get a scuff itself - and I checked my helmet inside and out very carefully wondering if I should replace it. If I had been wearing a hat instead I'm pretty confident the outcome of that collision would have been no different. The only thing that might have helped would have been an in-the-mouth mouthpiece. I went so far as to try one of those from ShockDoctor, and quickly determined it wasn't compatible with skiing - at least for me. I need to breathe through my mouth when skiing because my nose gets runny and stuffed up from the cold, and the mouthpiece just will NOT work right (it can fall out or present a choking risk). Then there's the talking thing. Yup, the sample size is "n of 1" but the helmet still wouldn't have made a difference in the only skiing knockout of anyone I actually know.
Knee-Helmet I say, that's what we need! Let's prevent something statistically significant, NOT something even rarer than being struck by Lightning. I actually know dozens of people that have hurt their knee(s) skiing and required knee surgery - myself included. So, if we're going to be evangelists about protection, let's do it for our knees and make a difference where it statistically matters.
Richie,
Yeah the big bouncy ball suits with skies out the bottom.....but the goofiest lookin stud on the hill is the guy in the center backround in the green jack and goofy pant with no helmet on his skull....He looks baffeled.
Thanks for the pic...and the great insight....keep up the good fight. It is amazing.
Chris,
Just to reiterate for your benefit, I am a Speech Pathologist specializing in neurological impariment and therapy and I see Traumatic Brain Injuries up close all the time for the past 30 years. During my career I have seen the extreme devastation to the individual and perhaps even more tragcially to their families. I have followed patients from bedside during the first few days after injury all the way through say 10-20 years post trauma and brother man you have to understand that the effects of brain injury are like no other injury that could be imagined.
Joe,
I'm sure the cases you see are very sad indeed, and I bet you make a profound difference in improving the patient's situation. Kudos to you for doing so.
Remember though, that you only see the bad TBI cases, which gets back to the sample size they result from. Nor does this mean that wearing a helmet skiing affords statistically significant protection from TBIs, or even that TBIs from skiing with or without helmets are statistically significant. My contention is that TBIs from skiing are extremely rare statistically. For another helmet comparison, many states don't require Motorcycle riders to wear helmets, erring on the side of Free Choice. However, TBIs from crashing Motorcycles are far more statistically significant (and deaths from Motorcycles are over 5,000 per year for the sake of comparison with the forementioned dramatically lower Skiing and Lightning deaths per year of 40 and 100, respectively). - Chris
You can't realistically compare on "number of deaths" -- more people die from falling in the bathroom than skiing.
http://www.ski-injury.com/intro
http://www.ski-injury.com/specific-injuries/head
There was a study I read that had some numbers showing that if you survived a collision and were wearing a helmet, your risk of permanent brain injury was substantially reduced. (Not sure if that's the same one they referenced there.) I'll see if I can dig it up again.
That site also has some info on braces, etc.
http://www.ski-injury.com/specific-injuries/knee
There's also the KneeBinding... has a bunch of history here (the inventor ended up getting sued or something...)
The bottom line is that, ultimately, serious injuries are pretty rare. But I like my brain the way it is, and there's basically no downside, so I wear a helmet. The injury rates are so low that I think general safety education is a better goal than just slapping helmets on everyone.
yes my hospital work is with fresh severe cases. My private practice is with less severe 'concussion" cases.
Just focusing on the consussion cases for a moment, these are considered "subclinical" in that often the initial injury did not involve a trip to the Doc and in many o fthese cases there are no abnormal CT findings. Yet the person has difficulty learning and retaining information, sequencing events, attention deficits...you know mild things taht go unnoticed sometimes for years but neverthe less effect things like school performance, career etc.
The devastation of effect outweighs the prevalence in terms of planning for safety.
And you are correct I am busy with TBI for all sources, falling off ladders, murdercycles, fights, bikes (really common here in chitown burbs) snowmobile accidents, suffocation.
Suffocation is an interesting one because that could happen from anoxic brain injury when a person is knocked unconscious adn the airway is blocked with vomit. This person is often not rescued but i scommon when a person looses conciousness.
It is the potential for devastation and not the prevalence of injury that puts helmets on heads and creates the plea for better helmet devices.
