No Reduction In Average US Slope Death Numbers As More Wear Ski Helmets
No Reduction In Average US Slope Death Numbers As More Wear Ski Helmets
Published : 04-Jan-2011 03:59
A depressing run of sad stories from the slopes of Europe and North America over the Christmas period has seen at least half a dozen people die in accidents. At least half of those killed were wearing helmets.In the most horrific accident, at a small ski hill on Wyoming, Hogadon, a 23 year old boarder crashed in to a mother and her five year old daughter at high speed on an icy black run. Both the snowboarder and the little girl, who was wearing a helmet, are dead.
The deaths of those wearing helmets may raise questions for those who argue that helmet wearing should be obligatory and a rare bit of research has been published by the NSAA (The National Ski Areas Association of the USA) which has found that while helmet wearing can be shown to have dramatically reduced injuries over the past decade, the number of deaths on the slopes on average in the US has held steady at around 40 per year, despite the increase in number of people wearing helmets.
Essentially the research found that while helmets did reduce the risk of injury in minor accidents, they were largely ineffective in the kind of accident most likely to cause a fatality, such as hitting a tree or rock at high speed.
The study found that injury rates from traditional injuries (such as twisted knees) has dropped dramatically due to improvements in bindings, shorter skis and helmet wearing.
Three-quarters of deaths were among males in their late teens or latter 40s who were of intermediate ability or above and traveling at high speed.
On the upside, skiing and boarding was found to have one of the lowest death rates of any sport, the 40 average death rate in the US compared to 900 deaths in the country from cycling and was about the same as playing tennis with chance of fatality less than one in a million.
Courtesy of and © Snow24 plc
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