By Robert Remington, Calgary Herald February 21, 2009
My ski crash did not occur on a treacherous double black diamond run with moguls the size of small cars. A gust of wind did not blow me into a stand of trees. I was not skiing reckless or fast.
I was staying within my limits on a relatively easy section of an intermediate run at Banff’s Mount Norquay. It was a beautiful day. Nobody was near me. I remarked to myself that the snow conditions were good, unlike the steep, icy, upper section I had negotiated without incident. The next thing I remember, a ski patroller was at my side asking if I knew my name. I did, despite the blood-stained snow and the dull, foggy ache in my head. A witness told the ski patrol she saw me “tumbling.”
The trip to the base of the mountain strapped to a toboggan seemed quick. Perhaps I was lapsing in and out of consciousness. I was taken into a first-aid hut, where a ski patroller cleaned the cuts to my face. At some point, my helmet was removed.
A name brand that cost $100, it may have done me little good. Unlike hockey helmets, there is no safety standard for snow sport helmets in Canada, as there is in the U. S. and Europe. Nor are there any minimum standards for bicycle, in-line skating or skateboarding helmets.
Richard Kinar, a former professional freestyle skier and member of the Brain Injury Association of Canada, says many snow sport helmets offer no more protection than putting a bag of milk on your head.
Inspired in part by Kinar’s seven-year crusade to improve helmet safety, B. C. Liberal MP Hedy Fry, a medical doctor, reintroduced a bill two weeks ago she first proposed in 2007 to set national safety standards for snow sport helmets. Stephen Harper’s government has not acted on it, even though preventable injuries are the main cause of death and injury to children, and head injuries are the leading cause of death for males under age 35.
The government’s refusal to act on Fry’s bill, says Kinar, is appalling.
“Stephen Harper has turned his back on the leading killer and disabler of children,” says the Vancouver father.
Even with such lax standards, Kinar says a bad helmet is better than no helmet. Wearing a helmet may reduce the risk of serious brain injury by 50 per cent. It is not mandatory, however, to wear a helmet at a ski hill. Some ski areas require helmets for children under 12 or for anyone entering a half-pipe.
For Dave Irwin, that’s not good enough. “I think they should be mandatory for everyone,” says the two-time Olympian and former World Cup champion skier. In 2001, while wearing a helmet while skiing, Irwin suffered a traumatic brain injury that left him in a three-day coma with no memory of his past, his family or even himself.
Despite the advice of Irwin and other helmet advocates, Canada’s ski operators say helmet use should be left to personal choice, a position that Kinar calls “extremely irresponsible.”
My personal choice for years has been to wear one. After my accident two weeks ago, I want a better one. I’m dismayed that substandard helmets are even sold. I bought mine at an Alberta ski resort, paid top dollar for it and assumed it was approved. I was wrong.
I have no memory of the accident. Although the cuts, bruises and swelling to my face have vanished, I still suffer dizzy spells and have no idea what the long-term consequences may be.
Once considered a benign trauma, concussions are now found to cause memory decline, decreased reaction time, poor motor skills and increase the risk of Alzheimer’s, according to recently published Canadian research.
My pre-crash memory is that I was skiing responsibly, as the ski industry urges. My post-crash experience is one I would not wish on my worst enemy.
In the first-aid hut, perhaps on the hill, I was immobilized on a back board with neck braces and constraints. A doctor, in attendance for a ski race, arrived at the hut. Strangely detached from what was happening around me, I could hear voices as I was loaded into the ambulance. A paramedic named Alex gently engaged me in small talk to test my memory. What is your name? Where do you live?What did you have for breakfast? Were you skiing alone? How did you get to the hill?
For the next several hours, my view of the world was limited to sterile white ceilings and lights that rolled above me as I was wheeled from the ambulance bay to the emergency room, to the X-ray machine and back.
Lying in the trauma bay, I began to panic. Even though I knew I was not paralyzed–I could move my hands, arms and legs — I imagined myself locked in a world of dependence.
Wanting to see the extent of my injuries, I fumbled for my cellphone in my vest pocket and took a picture. With a rapidly swelling nose and a gash to my forehead, I looked like a cross between Frankenstein and the late comedian, Jimmy Durante.
Found to have no internal bleeding, broken bones or neck injury, I was freed from my rigid prison after several hours. My neck brace was removed, the straps untied, and the doctor slowly moved my head and neck to each side. Soon I was able to sit, then stand. That’s when the room began to spin.
After two weeks, it is spinning still. The dizziness occurs when I lie down, look up, reach above my head and occasionally when I get up from a chair.
I had suffered a classic “grade three concussion,” described in the medical literature as the most severe form, where the injured person loses consciousness for a brief period of time and has no memory of the event.
As bad as my injury seemed to me, it was nothing compared to the trauma suffered by Irwin.
“I lost 20 years of my life,” says the former World Cup downhiller, one of the legendary “Crazy Canucks” who took the skiing world by storm in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
On March 14, his Dave Irwin Foundation for Brain Injury will hold its seventh annual fundraiser at Banff’s Sunshine Village to raise money for brain injury education, research and outreach programs. Irwin says the medical community is good at stabilizing brain injury victims and helping them survive, but pitiful at assisting with recovery.
“Nobody can see your brain injury. Nobody looks at you and says, ‘Oh, he’s brain injured.’ You pretty much have to do it all your own. It’s up to you.”
CT scans often do not reveal any abnormality from concussions. After about 10 days, the worst symptoms subside, but the invisible injury can haunt the victim for years.
The National Ski Areas Association says helmets are most effective at providing protection from a direct blow to the head at slow speeds. If you hit a tree, they may be useless. The NSAA says everyone should ski responsibly and within their ability. Helmet use, the association says on its website, may promote a false sense of security and increase risky behaviour.
The average daily cost of caring for a brain-injury survivor is $2,867.59, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Every dollar spent on a sport helmet saves the Canadian health-care system$29, says a 2006 report by the Economic Burden of Injury in Ontario.
Kinar says the Harper government should adopt Fry’s bill prior to the 2010 Winter Olympics. The Olympics, combined with a government campaign to make people 10 per cent more active, will encourage more children to take up snow sports, he says.
Harry Zarins, executive director of the Brain Injury Association of Canada, says Fry’s bill should be adopted, as does the Canadian Medical Association. “There are national standards for hockey helmets, but not for skiing, and it is just as popular as hockey,” Zarins said.
Should parents expect the helmet they put on their child before tobogganing be effective and safe?
To me, it’s a no-brainer.
