Skydiving and Traumatic Brain Injury

[lanceav8r 0]

I am just recently coming back to this sport after a long layoff. Recently I was checking out the latest offerings in hard full face helmets. I was struck with one question. Why are skydivers wearing these helmets instead of insisting on a helmet that offers actual protection? The current helmets marketed to skydiving offer no more protection then the idiotic novelty helmets that you see some Harley riders wearing in the US.

Don't fool yourselves into thinking that these helmets are protective beyond a little bump on your head or face. If you hit the tail or hit the ground you WILL receive a Traumatic Brain Injury if you hit with any sort of force at all. The fatality reports are loaded with no pull accidents due to brain injuries and collisions with the ground that resulted in a fatal brain injury. This is unnecessary. Who knows how many more accidents that result in Traumatic Brain Injury that go unreported?

Isn't there something that is actually protective that will work with skydiving? I can think of a couple helmets available for motorcycling that look like they would work great. Yes they are a bit heavier and more expensive. How much is your head worth?

[lanceav8r 0]

Here is one helmet that I am thinking of. The Visor is removable.

[skycamefalling 0]

How much heavier is it? What if you have hard openings? How important is your neck? If you strike the tail of the plane, what about your back? These are all vital parts of living also.

Speedracer~I predict that Michael Jackson will rise from the dead.
And that a giant radioactive duck will emerge from the ocean and eat Baltimore.

[oldrookie 0]

Arai XD is no lightweight, even for a bike helmet.

It will help if you bump heads with someone in freefall, but could be a drawback if you have a bad landing.
The induced cervical spine movement can cause other damage, thats why the boyz wear Leatt type braces with bike helmets nowadays.

Some time ago someone developed a helmet with a flexible outer skin to try and negate unwanted neck movement on impact.

6 of one, half a dozen of the other..........

[sinjin 0]

i wear a very similar helmet to that when i base jump, both s/d and terminal. i think u might feel some slight weird drag but it does off the best protection for the weight. u might want to borrow one and try it for a jump to make sure u are ok with the drag.

dont let life pass you by

[ridestrong 1]

Unfortunately most fatal traumatic brain injuries will be due to rapid deceleration injuries or a coup/contrecoup injury.... chances are not even the best helmets, motorcycle or otherwise will provide adequate protection. They would likely give greater protection against something like a tail strike though. Otherwise even the most basic helmets will protect against the simple hand/foot to the head.

If your afraid of a tail strike, get a heavy duty helmet.

If your afraid of some mid-air contact get any helmet on the market.

If your afraid of impact with the ground, it's probably not going to make much difference what type of helmet you have on.

Truth is there's nothing funny about being too safe... but be prepared to get cracked on if you show up with a motorcycle helmet.

*I am not afraid of dying... I am afraid of missing life.*
----Disclaimer: I don't know shit about skydiving.----

[billvon 2,379]

>Why are skydivers wearing these helmets instead of insisting on a helmet
> that offers actual protection?

They do. I've been hit in the head more than once and my various helmets (ranging from Protecs to Freezr II's) have kept me from serious injury. Chris Farina ended up breaking his back during a downwind landing. His helmet was broken in several places and full of blood and dirt, but it saved his head.

Fortunately the cheapest helmets out there (Pro-Tecs) offer pretty good protection against serious impact if that's your priority.

[Rugby82 0]

Try mounting video and photo on a helmet like that. You probably cannot look up to reach your slider because the helmet will be too big. You cannot look to the side because the helmet is too wide and you will be stuck in your risers.

The total-weight will also be a serious issue for neck injury when deploying.

Blue skies!

[Squeak 17]

Quote

>Why are skydivers wearing these helmets instead of insisting on a helmet
> that offers actual protection?

They do. I've been hit in the head more than once and my various helmets (ranging from Protecs to Freezr II's) have kept me from serious injury. Chris Farina ended up breaking his back during a downwind landing. His helmet was broken in several places and full of blood and dirt, but it saved his head.

Fortunately the cheapest helmets out there (Pro-Tecs) offer pretty good protection against serious impact if that's your priority.

Last year (December) Exiting error, and i bashed my head on the step of the plane. Made my vision blurry and near knocked me out.
upon landing, I inspected my Cookie Composites helmet, it was split at the back . The helmet took the brunt of the impact and spread the force out. doing it's job admirably.
I immediately rang Cookie and asked for another.
It worked as i hoped it would.

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[hookitt 0]

All the gear all the time <== yep. This should take care of everything. It's just how I roll.





[Silver]photo courtesy of ficus

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[Arvoitus 1]

What do you reckon will happen to persons neck if they'll have an opening like this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJKtzidSmiE with that helmet?

Your rights end where my feelings begin.

[Squeak 17]

Quote

All the gear all the time




[Silver]photo courtesy of ficus

Nice one Timmae, how fast were you going?

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[Skyper 0]

Peripherial vision (up and down) is obstructed with that kind of helmets and it's also too heavy for skydiving.

Of course, you can jump what ever you want... but I prefer stuff designed for skydiving because we all know that in skydiving one little f* up might be enough for fatality or bad injury.

[ufk22 32]

I switched to a full-face helmet a few years ago after jumping over 15 years with a "frap" hat. I wore the Frap to keep the noise down. I were the full-face because of kicks to the face in free fall. I've replaced my lense due to cracks from getting kicked. This is all it's for. Any helmet that would provide some degree of better "impact" protection is way too heavy, and as has been stated, most tramatic brain injury is from deceleration, the brain bouncing off the inside of the skull.

This is the paradox of skydiving. We do something very dangerous, expose ourselves to a totally unnecesary risk, and then spend our time trying to make it safer.

[diablopilot 2]

Are you making an assumption that they offer nor "real" protection simply because they don't have "certification sticker" on them?

Show me one helmet that is "certified" for what we do.

----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[steve1 5]

A protec helmet may not look cool, but it will offer more protection than most other helmets.

I wore a motorcycle helmet for hundreds of jumps. They old ones were lighter weight than the big helmets that motorcycle riders wear now. I know one old jumper who still jumps with an old motorcycle helmet. He doesn't care if he looks cool or not, and he likes the extra protection.

I know another guy who wears a ski helmet. It isn't in style, but it may offer a little more protection.

So far, I like my z-1 helmet. I'd like a little more protection though....

[jsaxton 0]

You wearing a cup too?

Quote

All the gear all the time [Silver]photo courtesy of ficus

[grimmie 173]

You can be knocked unconcious wearing any type of helmet. Auto racing, motorcycle, NFL, NHL etc.

Full face skydiving helmets offer a lot of protection. IMHO

[Fast 0]

Quote

Quote

>Why are skydivers wearing these helmets instead of insisting on a helmet
> that offers actual protection?

They do. I've been hit in the head more than once and my various helmets (ranging from Protecs to Freezr II's) have kept me from serious injury. Chris Farina ended up breaking his back during a downwind landing. His helmet was broken in several places and full of blood and dirt, but it saved his head.

Fortunately the cheapest helmets out there (Pro-Tecs) offer pretty good protection against serious impact if that's your priority.

Last year (December) Exiting error, and i bashed my head on the step of the plane. Made my vision blurry and near knocked me out.
upon landing, I inspected my Cookie Composites helmet, it was split at the back . The helmet took the brunt of the impact and spread the force out. doing it's job admirably.
I immediately rang Cookie and asked for another.
It worked as i hoped it would.

I saw a dude last year who did a low turn with a standard skydiving fullface. The helmet was unusable after that jump, but the doctor at the ER did say it likely saved his life.

~D
Where troubles melt like lemon drops Away above the chimney tops That's where you'll find me.
Swooping is taking one last poke at the bear before escaping it's cave - davelepka

[hookitt 0]

Quote

Quote

All the gear all the time




[Silver]photo courtesy of ficus

Nice one Timmae, how fast were you going?

I'll send you a PM. It was fun but felt rather "slippery" :)

My grammar sometimes resembles that of magnetic refrigerator poetry... Ghetto

[lanceav8r 0]

The Arai XD
helmet does not obstruct your vision at all.

[lanceav8r 0]

No, I am saying that I need a DOT or SNELL rating on the helmet.

Ask yourself this: Does the current helmet that you use do anything at all to slow the deceleration of your head at impact? TBI is the result of the brain bouncing off the skull at deceleration. The only way to limit the damage done is to slow the deceleration forces of your skull.

The current helmets might help limit facial injuries or help limit skull fractures but they still do near nothing to slow the deceleration of your head and prevent your brain from bouncing around in your skull.

The current motorcycle type helmets may be a little bulky and many would limit your vision. I agree that these would induce their own set of problems.

So how about asking the market to design something that would actually work for skydiving and help protect us from TBI? We are much smarter now since the frap hat days. We should use some of this knowledge.

[LouDiamond 1]

Quote

So how about asking the market to design something that would actually work for skydiving and help protect us from TBI? We are much smarter now since the frap hat days. We should use some of this knowledge.

The bigger issue here that is probably an unknown to the average skydiver is that in order to build a helmet that does what you are asking from it, requires that it be bigger/bulkier than what people want because they want to look cool. It also involves a fairly large amount of money on the mfgrs part to conduct the required testing to actually produce a helmet that meets the safety standards commonly used for helmets designed against impacts. That cost alone outweighs the money that would be made in selling everyone in the USPA that skydives one of those helmets after the certification.


The other fact is that the incident of TBI related to skydiving specifically is probably non existent to extremely low. There are helmets out there that can provide a level of protection but the gritty reality of it is that most incidents where skydivers are impacting the ground, deceleration of the brain is not the only trauma being suffered by the body. A pro-tec is a good choice and if you want to get a level higher,an HGU-55 Gentex helmet does have a styrofoam crush liner in it and is considered both noise and impact attenuating. But , as I said earlier, most people don't want to look like Marvin the Martian.


If you want to make the average pro-tec better, you can buy an upgrade kit from Oregon-Aero that increases the protection/impact better than the OEM foam.

"It's just skydiving..additional drama is not required"
Some people dream about flying, I live my dream
SKYMONKEY PUBLISHING

[wmw999 2,114]

Ski helmets work that way; in addition, Oregon Aero sells upgrade kits for the Z1 and Protec (info here).

Wendy P.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[phoenixlpr 0]

Quote

Are you making an assumption that they offer nor "real" protection simply because they don't have "certification sticker" on them?

Show me one helmet that is "certified" for what we do.

Well. I met a guy wearing a certified motorcycle helmet.
He looked like Lord Helmet from SpaceBalls.