Forget vanity

[pecunium]

Natasha Richardson is dead. It was, probably, preventable.

1:Wear a helmet. Right there, she probably walks away from it. You may think helmets make you look silly. You may think they make you look scared. You may think they make you look less than completely competent.

Who cares? Really, why should you care?

I ride horses. I wear a helmet. I ride a bicycle. I wear a helmet. When I ride in a military vehicle, I wear a helmet. When I do technical climbing on live rock, I wear a helmet. When I rappel, I wear a helmet.

When I've fallen off of horses, and bicycles, and rocks... I've been lucky enough to only need to replace the helmet. It's pretty cruel of me. My friends and family miss out on the chance to visit me in hospital. I don't get to become an activist for those who are paralyzed; going before Congress to argue for more research.

You know what else they miss out on? My early death.

All I do is stimulate the economy by spending the money for another helmet; and providing more data to the manufacturers, so they can improve them (if your helmet maker does a deal, where they sell you a replacement at a reduced rate for returns of damaged helmets, do it. If they don't, send it to them anyway).


The second thing which was done wrong was to refuse medical attention.

Head injuries are deceptive. One can feel fine, and have a depressed fracture. The blood build pressure on the brain until, all of a sudden one falls down and dies. A concussion can be similarly fatal, hours after the injury. If you see stars, think about seeing a doctor. If you were traveling faster than your legs can propel, don't think about it, do it.

Comments

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

Yanno, I am not a medical professional, but I am ALMOST inclined to say that if you feel fine - or loudly INSIST that you feel fine - after being hit on the head, by definition you have a problem.

I have been hit on the head, various ways, a number of times. I did not feel "fine". I felt as if I'd been HIT ON THE DAMNED HEAD, which is to say my head HURT.

"Feeling fine" probably also contributed to Marion Dewar's death.

And you better wear a damn helmet. *loves*

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

This is something I struggle with, getting back on the bike. I'm 52 years old; when I was riding a bike as a kid, nobody bothered with helmets. And we rode all over the neighborhood, and down some pretty damn busy main streets, and I never knew or heard about any injury more serious than a skinned knee.

Intellectually, I know I need to wear a helmet. Physically, it's not even uncomfortable. Emotionally... I hate the damn thing. I wear it more often than not, but it's a struggle every time.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I grew up without one (and am alive now only because of luck, and a really hard head).

Think seat belts. Think condoms. Think of anything where the benefits outweigh the risks, and for which the rules changed between when we learned to do a thing, and the present (when I was a kid, seatbelts weren't in every car, and when I started having sex, herpes was the big deal, as AIDS wasn't really on the radar).

I still feel silly wearing a helmet on the bike. I almost feel silly wearing one on a horse. That's after at least one fall which would have crippled me (I did a pile-driving landing onto head and shoulder) and another which would probably have put me in hospital, instead of on bed-rest for a week.

Please make it all the time.

[starwatcher]

.
I never knew or heard about any injury more serious than a skinned knee.

But that's the thing -- statistically, our chances of needing that helmet for any individual ride are slim. But we never know when that .00whatever chance will catch up with us.

I was bucked of my young, not-as-well-trained-as-I-thought horse several years ago; landed flat on my back with my head impacting the ground. When I picked myself up, the back of my helmet was split through in three long cracks. But note: I picked myself up and walked away. Helmetless, I think I'd be permanently disabled... if not dead.
.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

What pecunium said. Please. Your brain is a precious thing, which makes many people's lives better.

[affreca.livejournal.com]

Please wear a helmet. If you'll accept anecdotes from a stranger, I have several.

I never got to know my father because he was in a bicycle accident when I was an infant. He fell off his bike and hit his head. He was braindead by the time he got to the hospital. My ex roommate was luckier. He lived, but he ended up with a concussion and doesn't remember anything of that night.

My husband, however, was wearing a helmet when he had his bicycle accident. He ended up with a compound fracture, but his head was fine.

yes

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I'm in this place, too. And every time I say so, I get the same chorus of statistics and anecdotes that came up following your comment. And yeah, they're probably right, but I just wanted to say I know exactly how you feel, and if the replies you got seem to miss your point, then yeah, I know how that feels too.

Yet I do wear a helmet when I bike. I have always been annoyed and not convinced by the statistics and anecdotes and well-meaning persuasion, but I wear the helmet because my children's other parent is brain-injured and it doesn't seem right to risk them having the both of us disabled that way.

K. [so for me, the personal reason is the one that counts, and not my response to the persuasion chorus]

Re: yes

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

The chorus doesn't bother me -- in a way, it's flattering to know that people care enough to say something. And there are ways to look at helmet-wearing that make sense to me. I try to think of it as like doing computer backups; you don't need them often, but when you do, you REALLY need them. (Of course, I'm lazy about doing computer backups too, but at least that line of thought is something my back-brain considers valid.)

[zeeth_kyrah]

As a child, I never wore a helmet. As an adult, I always do. I don't like the style of my bicycle helmet, and I think that my motorcycle helmet makes me look like a bobble-head toy, but I'd rather look dumb than end up damaged or dead.

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

More people should listen to Gary Busey.

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

I know not of ski-ing or horse riding. But for bicycles, although your argument sounds sensible, the evidence absolutely doesn't back it up; helmet laws (in particular) are correlated with an increase, not a reduction, in serious injury (per ride, this is; helmet laws are also correlated with a reduction in cycle use). It may be that riders overcompensate, or it may be that drivers (who are implicated in a lot of serious injuries to adult cyclists) are less careful around cyclists with helmets. You can't hear as well when wearing a helmet, so that might be part of it. It may be because mandating helmet use leads to a reduction in cycling. Cycling is in general rather good for you, so if it's a choice between cycling with no helmet and not cycling, you should definitely still be cycling.

We wear helmets, partly because children need to wear helmets when cycling (they fall off their bikes more than adults do, and they do it at the slow speeds where bicycle helmets are most effective) and we want to model behaviour for our kids. For the person who 'hates their damn helmet'; I have just bought a fantastically expensive helmet and it's not only much more comfortable than cheaper ones have ever been, it also looks fabulous. Best brand depends on the shape of your head, and not all shops stock all brands; so if you can't find a helmet you like in your regular cycle shop, try a different shop.

But here's the thing. If you wanted to mandate helmet use to reduce head injury, then by far and away the most effective activity to choose would be to mandate helmet use for young men leaving pubs on Friday and Saturday nights.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

One: I didn't offer a mandate. I encouraged.

Two: I can't speak to the increase in injuries. I'd need to see the breakdowns (as well as the question of TBI, and MTBI) and the incidence of fatality, to those injuries.

I am, actually, less worried about fools in cars, than I am such things as sudden loss of tire (I once had something pierce my wheel), discovering a pothole I can't avoid, losing my concentration enough to hit the kerb, or (as my father did), a mailbox.

The impact ruptured his spleen. He had no helmet (forgot it, just that once), and the ground beat the side of his head in. He's less focused now than he used to be, and has lost about 85 percent of his sense of smell.

Had my, 14 year old, sister not been with him, he'd be dead. With a helmet he'd have been just as pneumothoracically beaten up, but he'd have been able to call 911 for himself, and the lack of smell/focus/minor aphasia would probably not have happened.

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

helmet laws (in particular) are correlated with an increase, not a reduction, in serious injury (per ride, this is; helmet laws are also correlated with a reduction in cycle use). It may be that riders overcompensate, or it may be that drivers (who are implicated in a lot of serious injuries to adult cyclists) are less careful around cyclists with helmets. You can't hear as well when wearing a helmet, so that might be part of it. It may be because mandating helmet use leads to a reduction in cycling.

Please produce or at least direct us to, these studies, preferably in full versions, as I for one wish very much to read them over properly.

One of my dearest friends has been for many many years involved with the local cycling advocacy group in Ottawa (http://www.safecycling.ca/), as has her partner, and everything she has ever said about cycling and helmets in my presence suggests that if any of those studies show a 1) clear 2) causal, not correlational, connection 3) with confounding factors properly accounted for, she will not only discard but EAT her helmet. Raw with no condiments.

[sneerpout.livejournal.com]

I hosted an almightly bunfight in my journal on this topic about four years ago. It was a good debate with a pile of links posted to back up peoples' (strongly voiced) opinions. My archive is private now, but I'll see if I can dig the entry out when I get home.

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

It's absolutely tragic how preventable that death was. Very sad for her family.

I'm absolutely with you on the bike helmets thing, with two illustrative stories.

1) My father (a very experienced cyclist both on and off the road) had a serious bike accident a couple of years ago caused by hitting a stone in the road. He pitched over the handlebars and landed on his shoulder and head. The damage to his shoulder was severe, with the result that they had to replace the upper part of his humerus. No damage to his head thank gods, because he never ever gets on his bike without a helmet. It could have been a lot worse.

2) A friend of the family over here in Belgium (also an experienced cyclist) had an accident also a couple of years ago. No one knows what happened to him - he was found unconscious on the cycleway, and has no memory of the accident. He wore no helmet and suffered head injuries and brain damage that still affect him now.

Practically everybody in NL and Belgium rides a bike, but it's very uncommon to see people wearing helmets, even children. The people most often to be seen with helmets are all the amateur & pro cyclists (I suspect because of club rules - and often they don't wear them either). Many people with young children take them along on bike seats at the front or back of their own bikes, or in little trailers. I almost never see those little ones with helmets either. It makes my blood run cold, when I think of how badly a little kid could be injured by a fall from an adult bike. The only saving grace here is that cyclists are a widely recognised part of the traffic, with their own designated lanes along most roads and their own set of signals at the traffic lights. Even so, it only takes a moment of inattention or an unchecked blind spot or even just common or garden driver asshattery for something awful to happen, as evidenced by the two accidents involving cyclists I've seen on my way to work in the past week.

So yeah. I don't care what everyone else is doing - I and my family will always wear helmets when on bikes!

[maps-or-guitars.livejournal.com]

I blade; I have for many years, and before that, I pond-skated. I wore a helmet when I skated on ice (mainly because hockey was happening) but for most of the past ten years or so I didn't wear a helmet skating. And I have to admit that my primary reason for not doing so was the "I must look like a dork" thing. Stupid. I've been both competent and lucky.

When I got new blades this year, though, I got a brain bucket too. Basically, I got tired of my lovely wife worrying about me not wearing one. And you know? I might look like a dork. But it's not impairing me in ANY of the bullshit ways I said I was certain it would when I was rationalizing not wearing one. I see as well as I ever did and I hear as well as I ever did. The helmet's light.

So if there's any way I'm going to prematurely snuff it, "avoidable head injury whilst skating" will probably not be one of them. Yay brain bucket.

[sneerpout.livejournal.com]

Somewhere in my parents' attic is the hard hat I was wearing when I had my worst riding accident (I was 14 and hit a dry stone wall head first). It's split clean down the middle.

Wear Your Helmet

[hakeber.livejournal.com]

I wore a helmet. I lived.

In 2004 I was hit by a minivan while riding my bike. I had a very serious concussion and have no memory of that whole evening. I am told I protested and said I was fine. I am told that at first, I seemed ok, but because I was scraped up, they took me in anyway. I am told that as the evening wore on, I got worse, couldn't tell them what day of the week it was, kept asking the exact same question over and over and over and over again, as if I'd never been told the answer.

It was weeks before my short term memory returned. Months before it was anything like it had been. And years later, I still feel that things are ... 'missing'. It's frightening. And it will never go away.

[cluefairy-j.livejournal.com]

I ski and wear a helmet - but that's only been in the past ten years. I made a jump, landed on my butt and then my head smacked against the mountain. Wasn't knocked out or anything and was fine. I took it as a sign, thanked my lucky stars and got a helmet before the next time I went skiing.

As a skier, I understand the mindset as to why she wasn't wearing a helmet on the bunny slope and it doesn't have to do with dorky (well, i'm not saying there isn't some of that, but my supposition is that it's not the main reason). It has to do with the slope is usually so gradual and you're not moving fast, how could you seriously injure yourself??!! Well, gee, you can. I'm not saying it's right to think that way, but I admit I never think about an adult wearing a helmet when they are on a bunny slope for that reason. Earlier this season I took a friend out for the first time and didn't think bunny slope = helmet. Shame on me and how stupid have I been? Our bodies are fragile, I KNOW that. Tsk. I have decided that the next time I take a newbie skiing they have to wear a helmet. Hopefully some good will come out of this and people will realize that you should wear a helmet at all times skiing - first time to experienced. Maybe ski resorts should mandate that if you rent their equipment, a helmet is not optional (right now, it's an extra rental that you opt in or out of).

The biggest selling point I always tell skiers who still don't wear a helmet is that it keeps your head WARM. My god, it's fantastic. I don't have to wear a hat at all. Helmet, goggles and something to cover my mouth and cheeks. suh-weet.

[zeeth_kyrah]

Are there helmets designed for skiers? Because I keep thinking of a bicycle helmet on a skier's head, and thinking the airflow holes would frickin' freeze my scalp (for the several weeks in winter before I got a motorcycle helmet, I wore a bicycle helmet while riding my 50cc motor scooter, and I had to wear a scarf underneath or my head froze).

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

There are tons of them (http://skihelmets.com/).

[janetl.livejournal.com]

I always wear a helmet riding my bike - cars, hard pavement - no question.

I never have worn a helmet skiing. I don't ski in areas with trees, or do jumps. That whole sloping-slippery-surface thing dissipates the energy of a fall pretty well. The only injury I've every seen among my friends is the classic thumb injury from a pole, and one twisted knee. Obviously, I have read in the news of the occasional brain injury skiing, but prior to this sad one it was people hitting a tree. I'm just not sure that my odds of a brain injury while skiing are much greater than they are from being clumsy on the stairs, or climbing a ladder to prune the vines on my garden trellis. I'd like to see what the statistics are like, and with this recent accident, I'm sure there will be a plethora of articles with some data.

[ceelee.livejournal.com]

Wear your helmets, please, and it looks way cooler to wear a helmet than not. I have 4 adult kids who ride bikes all the time and they always wear helmets. It is just so accepted and expected that to do otherwise would seem like riding around nekkid! Brrr!

[packbat.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

Psychologically, I don't understand the objection to helmets. I get that it is real, but I just can't see what motivates the disinclination ... unless it is nothing but "this requires effort that, emotionally, feels unnecessary". Which doesn't explain the similar resistance to seat belts, where the effort is all but negligible.

I just don't know.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

My friends and family miss out on the chance to visit me in hospital. I don't get to become an activist for those who are paralyzed; going before Congress to argue for more research.

This is a pretty mean way to say this, speaking as someone who "got to" watch one family member die from a cancer that wasn't treated in time and "got to" watch another family member be paralyzed by the effects of an infection that wasn't treated in time. You know perfectly well that it's not "get to," it's "have to," in these cases, and being sarcastic about it trivializes the pain of the people who aren't as wise as you in their choices, and of the people who love them and have no control over their choices.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Mary, I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. I've done those things. I've been helping my father deal with the after-effects of his MTBI (which wasn't properly treated in the aftermath, so some things are worse than they ought to be). I've head friends die of things which ought to have been prevented.

I've sat through the briefings when a first sergeant, at the end of a long AT let a young soldier drive the Humvee, and didn't make sure the kid was wearing his helmet. They both fell asleep, the humvee rolled. The kid died.

I wasn't trivialising it. I was trying to make it sting a little. I do want people who choose to not wear a helmet to think about the things that risk might cause their family to have to do.

It was meant to be a little mean.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Thanks I get where you're coming from, but you're not just addressing people who've chosen not to wear a helmet, so you're being mean a little indiscriminately. The post doesn't talk about your own experiences of loss--you state that you never make this particular mistake, and then turn glib when you invoke the pain you & your loved ones have avoided.

Most of the people I know who have died could be said to have brought it on themselves, either through poor health management, poor risk management, poor dating choices, addiction, or suicide. I understand the tendency of people to feel superior to those who have died or ruined their lives, but it makes me very uncomfortable. And I don't really think you're that kind of guy, which is why I brought it up.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It's a difference in perception. I no longer make that choice. I don't do it because 1: I'd rather not end up crippled (dead is another issue. I like living, I don't know what dead is like. I'm willing to put off finding out).

I chose to be flip. I could have made a plea, mentioning all the people I know (or knew) who suffered as a result of people not wearing helmets. I didn't think it effective.

People get that story all the time. The catalyst for this post was just such a story. People don't think that way. They recall being a kid, and not wearing a helmet. They know they've not been in an accident.

They misestimate consequences and risks. I know they do that. I do that (no longer with helmets, but I do things which are fundamentally dangerous). They do that despite all the appeals to their sense of self-protection.

So I didn't make it about that. I didn't make it about me. I made it about the people they care about. It wasn't the most pleasant way to do it (and it's not an issue of superior. I stayed in the army, a decidely high-risk profession, in peace and in war. I did it because it pleased me to do so. I did it knowing it pained people who loved me. It was much like wearing a helmet), but I thought it more likely to get the message across than the more friendly version.

I am not always a nice person.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I don't think you're always a nice person--neither am I. I'm not saying you should be. I'm just questioning your usually-expert marksmanship on this occasion. If you had said "have to" instead of "get to" I think it would have been right on target, although it still would make me, personally, uncomfortable. (Which would be fine.)

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

I wear seat-belts, don't happen to do anything that calls for the use of a helmet (though would certainly wear one if I did), but one Protection I don't utilize (& don't propose to) is wearing gloves when gardening. Yeah, I'm aware of the threats of tetanus, salmonella, ringworm fungus, and parasites from catshit, but the clumsification factor seems to overide these, for me.

[texaslawchick.livejournal.com]

Right there with ya on that one. Unless I'm hacking at the bougainvilleas or some of the thornier roses (I'm looking at you, Fairy), the gloves are off.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I don't use gloves (unless I'm working on lots of roses). I don't wear boots all the time when around the horses. We all take risks. Some risks, however, are potent enough that foregoing them isn't something to gamble with.

[texaslawchick.livejournal.com]

Brain injuries are scary. I have a friend who is still in rehab after being hit by a car when she was walking home from a bar on Election Night. She started to wake up somewhere in the middle of December and is slowly regaining her cognitive functions week by week.

My father is a pulmonologist and he has always focused his safety lectures on stuff that could end up breaking our necks, since he works at a rehab hospital full of quadraplaegics. He would let us wander around Europe for a summer by ourselves at the age of 16, but just saying the word "motorcycle" would merit a lecture.

I confess that though I'm awfully good about wearing a helmet when I bike, it doesn't really occur to wear one when I ski. I'll have to rethink that.