And here is a report by Bruce Rhymes from the Oz Report forum on another incident involving a full-face helmet......when my girlfriend Holly had a bad accident on Memorial Day, she was wearing a Charley Insider. She hit the ground, and shattered every bone in her face. The chin guard broke clean through just to the right of center...and there was a second crack (clean through the shell) starting above the left eye and extending back a couple inches.
The question we'll never have an answer to is...did the helmet protect her? Or not? Seems logical to assume that the helmet must have offered some protection...on the other hand, though, it's hard to imagine how the damage to Holly's face could have been any worse. (Happy ending---she looks fine now!)
The chin guard may have helped some, as (amazingly) Holly suffered no damage to her teeth whatsoever (even while shattering the rest of her face). On the other hand, the bridge of Holly's nose was broken and shoved back into her brain cavity, clearly a result of the upper helmet opening rotating downward and into her face. I wish we could know exactly what happened on impact. It's very hard to puzzle out.
An extensive study conducted by a professor at Bowdoin College shows that while helmets decrease the severity of head injury, they statistically increase the severity of neck injuries...and therefore it cannot be accurately maintained that "helmets save lives."I've been reading the helmet thoughts, and just have to speak out. This past August, my flying friend blew launch, and suffered very serious head and brain injuries while wearing a nearly-new Icaro Skyrunner full-face helmet. Like the Charly Insider, it meets the European EN966 certification for aerosports helmets. My buddy hit the rocks below launch face-first, at only 25mph. or so, but still crushed his forehead, shattered the entire orbit of his right eye, with accompanying frontal lobe injury. He broke his upper jaw in two places, and then there were the lesser injuries, like collarbone, etc. He lived through his two?week coma, though it was dicey for awhile... he made it through acute care and rehab to come home to continue recovery. Believe me, we want to avoid his experiences, and none of us are immune to a blown launch, or worse.
So: I've ended up in posession of his helmet, and upon close examination of it, and discussion with other pilot eyewitnesses to the crash, we all have come to the conclusion that his helmet offered inadequate protection. Two of us spent an hour at the motorcycle shop, looking over lots of motocross helmets by Bell, Shoei, Arai and other manufacturers. It's plain to any observer that these helmets, which meet DOT/Snell certification standards, offer much, much greater protection than any hang gliding helmet I've seen. Sure, they weigh more. So what. I've had a two-hour flight with my new Arai VXPRO motocross helmet, which weighs a full pound more than my Icaro helmet did... no problem. Besides, as one of the eyewitnesses said: "The cost of these motocross helmets is about as expensive as two aspirin in the hospital".
I'm a believer in the MX helmets for flying now. I hope this will make us all take a look at the flexible little eggshells we've been flying with for so long, and begin to provide more protection for our brains. Keep flying safely, Bruce Rhymes
http://www.bikersrights.com/statistics/ ... stein.html
It might sound as though I'm arguing against helmets or full-face helmets. I'm not. But it's crystal-clear that full-face helmets aren't going to prevent significant head/face injuries in accidents. I don't what the best solution is. Everyone has their beliefs. Other than just being as safe as possible, I'm not sure there is any bombproof way of mitigating severe head injuries in a crash. Just something we must live with.
Meanwhile, I still might go shopping for a motocross helmet and take my chances on the neck injury (and keep flying safe!).
Scott
PS - One interesting point (not verified conclusively) is that the makers of the Charley and Icaro helmets tend to use one helmet shell size and simply vary the amount of padding inside the shell to come up with different sizes. The outcome? People with big heads have less padding. If true, not good!
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