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Winterthur Block 37 as seen by Markus Suchanek
Full face helmets for downhill
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Tragic accident in South Africa
Pads help
painfull crash on a carve board
Bad Experience
Matt Mumford batendo a cabeça
One more save
Top skater dies after crash

Bad Experience

A US skater has learned from his bad injuries he got from not wearing a helmet

My Own Helmet Advice On 5/22/2006 Christian wrote in from United States (157.201.xxx.xxx)

Helmet safety is unfortunately a topic of controversy and debate. To me it is a simple fact that I will always wear one!!! I used to hate them, until I learned the hard way. Fortunately enough, the entire State of CA has been able to learn from my mistake. Here is what occurred:It was a Friday afternoon of a minimum day of school on 5 Oct. 2001 and a couple of my buddies and I went out riding and I took a pretty gnarly spill. I Ended up with bi-temporal contusions, and vertical and lateral fractures to my skull. I was immediately thrown into seizures and began bleeding from all of the pores on my face. Upon entering the hospital I suffered from pneumonia, a heart-attack, a tracheotomy that included the paralyzing of my left vocal cord, severe clotting (to the point of legitimate consideration of amputating all four limbs). The list goes on and on and on, to include everything from my left pupil exploding, to the hellish rehabilitation process of relearning how to walk, talk, and function all over again.

I learned from my mistake, so that YOU will not have to from yours. My helmet was in the trunk of my car no more than 40 feet from where I ultimately fell. I have recovered miraculously without any real lasting side effects. I have spoke at a number of elementary schools and am now attending college to pursue my eventual JD & MBA degrees. I was being filmed by my friend, and have taken the footage and created a short helmet-safety clip that is currently distributed by my non-profit (“Wear A Helmet, Inc.”) to Elementary schools all over CA. I spoke in favor of the helmet bill, now a law, to the CA State assembly and Senate and it is now required that all minors under the age of 18 wear a helmet while riding a skateboard, scooter (specifically including Razors), as well as Skates (in-line and otherwise). It was an expansion of the already existent bike helmet safety law.

It just makes sense!!! While I would argue that it was my decision and that I need not be told, ordered, or even commanded by law to wear a helmet; it was never my choice, nor should ever be my choice, to put my family through what they were subjected, as well as ring up the $3.5 million hospital bill.

I did not wear one because I thought that I looked like a loser with a helmet on-but really who was the loser when I fell?

Wear One—it is easily worth it!