Full “story” at the Daily Mail

i find snowboarding and skiing for that matter are best done on snow, not rock faces.

no helmet either. i’m surprised at he number of helmets this year. lots more than last year. i think two people killed already this year due to collisions on piste.

A bit OT here but I am going skiing for the first time this year and was wondering about the situation regarding helmets (or lack of them).

Helmets: some folk wear them, some don’t. Definitely not compulsory.

you may as well , they help to keep your brains inside your head , if you hit a tree / rock

Mleh, snow is soft, heads are hard. 😉

Seriously I’ve been boarding for 12 odd years. Helmets have only become popular in the last couple of years. People have being skiing without them for a long while and doing okay.

If you’re just learning to ski then you won’t be going through trees or through rock fields and if you do break anything it is waaaay more likely to be a wrist, forearm, knee, leg or ankle.

But if it makes you feel better, go for it.
It will keep your head warm if nothing else.

Helmet use seams to be getting more and more every year, I got mine when I had a old guy suddenly turn in front of me (in a tunnel!) and avoiding the collision I caught a backedge and landed on me head, and ended up with concussion! Bought lid on way back to the pad

I think I will get one tbh.
Never wore one on my bike back in the day but have done now for several years.
That paid for itself last year judging by the state of it after a crash.

I got a helmet last year. Noticeable how many more there are this year when we went in January. Seems to be the coming thing. Two more people in our chalet got them this year. I got mine because someone I was skiing with fell over going very slowly down an icy path. She was a very experienced skier, but was quite badly concussed and had to be assisted off the mountain. Then a few days later a saw a woman injure her head when skiing slowly down a piste and being taken out by someone out of control coming from behind.
My helmet is REALLY COMFORTABLE and EXTREMELY WARM.

Compulsory for kids in Italy. Talk of becoming compulsory Europe wide after 2 incidents in Austria this year.

Dozens of people die skiing every year in Europe – they try hard to keep it out of the headlines but I think the average is about 6 for Chamonix alone.
As Tom Stoppard said – its not as if the alternative is immortality.

Colin

GrahamS, I, of course, defer to your undoubted expertise at snowsports. However, your “Mleh…” response reminds me of when mountain bikers started asking if it would be a good idea to wear helmets.

i first bought my helmet two years ago for kiteboarding on land. it has saved my head from many a fall, drop and crash.

wore it a couple of times last year on the piste but felt i wasn’t hardcore enough. i saw people with a helmet and thought they were either shit-hot or simply shit. i was neither.

this year we went away, a group of 11. of that group only three were not wearing a helmet. the GF bought hers just before we went and she had a bad fall off a rail and her head came down square on it. thank f*ck she bought that helmet.

i’m not so worried about myself falling on the normal pistes. its more the people who come along behind you with big pointy sticks attached to their feet, whizzing along at 30-40mph who don’t have enough time to avoid you. have a mate who works in winter as a ski instructor in italy. he has a scar just above his ear where some-one went into him aftr he went down.

for the sake of 50quid or so i’d say it was worth it. you don’t notice you are wearing it. you head stays warm and it does give you a bit more courage to push yourself a little harder.

Makes a right mess of your barnet though! I notice they’re doing ones with ickle peaks on them now for us boarders to look a little different…nice

deadlydarcy: I didn’t intend to paint myself as an expert. I’m sure others on here have been skiing for longer. I’m just saying I have seen the rise of snow helmets over the past couple of years. 5 years ago no one was really wearing them.

I’d be interested to see some accident/mortality data over that period.

Personally I know two guys who have broken their necks – one was skiing and one was at Glentress. I don’t know anyone who has fractured their skull. Maybe that small sample clouds my judgement.

There are ten of us going boarding in Whistler in a fortnight. 3 will be wearing helmets.
If I can find one I like then I might get one as it will give me the confidence to go faster and harder – but that of course means I will be in more danger. If it turns out that I don’t find one then I won’t particularly miss it.

Ah right, I was in Whistler over Christmas – let me know if you need some info on it!

got told not to have one with a permanent peak. the peak can catch on the ground and pull the head round with it. this was with reference to kiting but i guess the same applies to snow sports.

Yep any Whistler info would be very useful as it is our first time there. (we were in Bannf last year)
Good bars (for a group of 34 year olds)? Best runs for powder? And most importantly, which mountain cafe has the best cake selection?

I don’t care how I look, for me a helmet is a must. Having skied for over 20 years, you get to see some serious head damage that could have been prevented.
Those pictures are amazing, that chap was indeed lucky.

Here in Alta (Salt Lake city) we’ve skied in at least 30 c.m.s of fresh powder today. T’was exhilarating.

I’m not sure how reliable it is, as they don’t state the sources of their data, but this press release from the National Ski Area Assoc has some interesting figures about helmet usage and mortality rates.

According to them, helmet usage is now at about 43% and a reduction in minor injuries has been observed, but no reduction in major injuries or death.

I never thought that wearing a helmet would save me from death, and still don’t! but after a few nasty crashes on hard piste/ice and my experiance -see above- thougth it wouldn’t do any harm, that was 7 years ago, when you where the odd-one out. Now every year, some one else in our group turns up with a lid. They’ll all be in full dainese armour/impact shorts just like me soon! 😆

anybody who says snow is soft hasn’t hit ti hard enough.

I got a lid on my first boarding trip, on the first day a lost an edge on ice and smashed the lid. The shop replaced it finding it hard to believe that my head and the ground could do so much damage.

The simple answer is wearing one is sensible and you look much less like a pr*ck than people with then silly hats or germans in lycra.

Also I really can’t believe that a bunch of bikers are actually discussing the merits of cranial protection. I though we had all worked out it was a good idea.

snow is soft, but the base underneath is ice which is harder than tarmac.
if you’ve any speed about you, get a lid !

Mate’s first day snowboarding last year in canada, caught his back edge, flippe dhim over and he knocked himself out. he went and bought a helmet.

I wear a helmet, always have for over 20 years of skiing, but then again i came from a racing background and had to wear them.

I always wear a helmet for boarding now after a couple of nasty knocks to the head – I don’t think it will stop me from dying but it might well stop me from getting knocked out. Especially seems worthwhile for off piste where there are potentially more rocks/drops etc.

First time boarding for me a couple weeks back. hired helmet. Had about 3-4 falls. Hit head twice- once going off the edge of a cliff (not as bad as above of course, steep bank with deep snow) and catching a back edge and flipping over backwards, landing on my arse with head following. Glad I had helmet.

I also had knee and elbow pads… knee pads were good for starting off with as I spent a lot of time on my knees.

bought a lid the other day, £35, looks good, and keeps your head toasty as well.
For skiing in scotland its useful, as you never know where the ice/rocks might be! But also sensible on the piste too.
you go fast, you fall over, you hit head, any bit of protection is worth having really, and its not as if its expensive either.

I don’t really want this to turn into yet another helmet debate. Helmets are massively on the rise in snow sports (43% in 2007/2008 from 25% in 2002/2003) and the majority of people think this is a good thing so who am I to argue.

My point is simply that if WTF had asked about snowboarding helmets ten years ago then he would have been told he didn’t need one and nobody wears them. If he asked five years ago then he would probably have been told that only pros, racers and children need them.

The snow hasn’t got any harder in the past five years, but attitudes have changed.

Dozens of people die skiing every year in Europe – they try hard to keep it out of the headlines but I think the average is about 6 for Chamonix alone.

Well maybe (though the statistic for Chamonix sounds extreme to me) but I remember reading somewhere that more people die on the mountains from heart attacks than from avalanches or falls.

Yep I wear a helmet – snow may be soft, but ice, frozen snow, rock, and trees are all hard.

True but then its also possibly true that, like mountain biking (again open to debate blah blah blah) – the kind of things that your average boarder/skier does on holiday have gradually got slightly more extreme. Certainly ‘back-country’ off piste seems to be a lot more popular now than ever.

I was staying in a chalet a few years ago and we got back from boarding one day to find that another family in our chalet had been out – the young daughter had gone over an edge, and her father had gone to try and rescue her, and they both died – only the mother was left from the family. Horrific.

I think dozens of people probably do die every year, but there must be hundreds of thousands (millions?) of skiers every year so it is probably still relatively safe.

I took my helmet (bought a few years back to avoid the scabby hire ones at the indoor slopes) with me to Sainte Foy this month. Noticable how many more people are wearing them.

Had it on from day 1 to see whether it annoyed me. It didn’t. Goggles stay in place better, head nice and warm, and more confidence to try silly stuff.

I can’t say I’ve properly injured myself on skis or snowboard, but I have bashed my head a few times when learning to board (it’s easy to catch an edge), or hitting unexpected ice. If a helmet is the difference between a bit of a headache, and knocking myself out and needing assistance, then it’s 100% worthwhile for me.

I think dozens of people probably do die every year, but there must be hundreds of thousands (millions?) of skiers every year so it is probably still relatively safe.

Again according to that NSAA release, swimming and cycling are far more dangerous.

They say fatalities per million participants is 5.8, but for swimming it is 72.7 and for cycling it is 29.4

Clearly more swimmers should be wearing helmets 😉

…more confidence to try silly stuff.

Several people have said something similar (including me) and that is the number one reason that helmets don’t actually contribute that much to overall safety.

If you actually want to improve your safety and reduce your chance of injury then the most effective method is still riding within your limits and ensuring that others around you do too. Sorry if that’s boring. but it’s true.

I spent a season in LDA & know people who did a good few more. There are a fair number of deaths in the mountains over a season, if not hushed up then actively kept quiet. There was a “super black there” actually it was fine, but was steep enough to slide all the way down if you fell at the top & was south facing so had a tendancy to be very icy at times. I know for a fact the year I was there there were 4 deaths on that run alone. If a helmet reduces the risk why not, and as stated above I imagine they do keep your head warm.

Do I wear a helmet? No, I have been skiing since the age of 6 (in the Lebanon) & am now 43 so have a fair amount of experience & am a damn sight slower now than I was 10-15 years ago, however I do ensure that my kids wear them all the time, they are just learning.
I am very seriously thinking of getting a helmet for me next time I go … the problem of course is one of ego … I dont think I do anything scary, fast of radical these days ….. saying that one of the worst incidents I was at was at 0 mph when a mate was stopped at the side of the slope & another mate slipped into him at about 2 mph, at the time the medics all thought it was a broken neck (luckily it wasnt), so as with a bike it can happen through no fault of your own at a time you do not think you are at risk.

If you have no ego hangups then wear one, it will not do any harm & may do lots of good.

PS plyons are hard & I do know of people who have somehow managed to get their heads through a gap in the padding, they died there & then.

i thought id chuck in my view. iv done 3 seasons and been away every year in between, im not marking ny self up as any type of expert but living in the mountains for the whole season gives you a good idea of the changing trends. to echo what GrahamS says, its more about attitudes changing. 5 years ago helmets were what the ski racers wore. i bought mine 3 years ago after failing to complete a 360 and landed on my bonce. i used to wear it then whenever i went off to do silly stuff only. on my last season in the first month one of our ski guides had to go home because of a quite severe head injury after a collision on the slopes. the next day practically the entire staff went out to buy them! i need a new one for the next trip out and il wear it everyday (of course im going to buy a cool one which matches my outfit!) in my mind its all about maximising your time safely on the slopes. whether your learning, pootling, carving down powder fields or booting sick 7`s off the park black kickers.

There was a “super black there” … I know for a fact the year I was there there were 4 deaths on that run alone. If a helmet reduces the risk why not

How many of those 4 deaths would have been prevented by a helmet? None according to the figures in the NSAA release.

How many more people will now attempt the run because they have a helmet to protect them? Quite a few according to the opinions expressed here.

I always wear a helmet boarding, and more often than not find myself wearing it when I’m skiing too. I’ve had enough falls where I’ve just whacked my head hard enough to at least think “Bugger, that would have really hurt without a helmet” for it feel worthwhile.

It’s clearly an active debate at the moment, see:
http://www.skiclub.co.uk/skiclub/news/story.asp?intStoryID=6155

Interesting quote from that (but no link to the source):
However, research carried out by Norwegian scientists last year seemed to suggest that wearing a helmet had measurable benefits. Of the 3,277 skiers and boarders surveyed , there were 578 head injuries (17.6%) and the scientists claimed that the effective use of a helmet would have reduced the risk of head injuries by 60%.

GrahamS, that I cant answer, mainly it was people falling & breaking vital stuff on the way down while still being thrown around. You are right as well the feeling of invincibility of a helmet may make it worse.

jonathan: yeah the NSAA release has similar findings in it:

..use of helmet reduces the incidence of any head injury by 30 to 50 percent, but that the decrease in head injuries is generally limited to the less serious injuries such as scalp lacerations, mild concussions (Grade I) and contusions to the head, as opposed to more serious injuries such as concussions greater than Grade II, skull fractures, closed head injuries and the like.

Not really surprising that wearing a helmet lessens some head injuries. But neither of those articles cover the overall risk in any detail.

In other words, if helmets encourage people to attempt things that they wouldn’t do otherwise then the overall risk of injury may not be reduced and may even increase.

I’m not trying to dismiss helmets – I’m just trying to make the point that staying within your limits is the best way to reduce your risk.