Head...Move...Now!

I ordered my S-One helmet the other day. I've been a little worried about buying the right one because...well, I have a gargantuan head. I need to get a helmet that fits. When I was little and in school or church we made little hat things, the teacher always had to make them a little bit bigger for me than the other kids. My siblings and I always felt like the kid with a large head in So I Married An Axe Murderer. 

I tried to go to a local skate shop to try on some helmets and see what size fits best. They were sold out of S-One and so one of the employees handed me another helmet to try out. He said it was a great helmet, one of his favorite to wear. I looked at it and became livid inside. He had handed me a non-certified helmet. It was basically a plastic shell with some foam pads (really cheap foam pads) inside. I thanked him, handed it back, and left the store before I could get on my helmet rant and start shouting helmet safety like a Southern preacher. 

This experience, along with the fact that nobody has made the promise to always wear a helmet (nobody, shame on you. Yes shame on you all), prompted me to ascend my soapbox of safety and talk about helmets again. 

I start by showing you this really cool video. This kid backflips off his skateboard, down a set of stairs, and lands on anther board. An absolutely awesome feat!

I was impressed. After I saw the video I saw a link to another video of him practicing the trick. Check it out.

This kid...might be a good boarder, but he is really really really stupid. Not only does he put himself through this punishment but...he has no helmet! If he over-rotates on one of those flips he could smash the back of his head right on the concrete and BAM. Bad news. There are a million things that could go wrong. Like this kid who had a much more severe fall. Stupid....stupid, stupid, stupid. 

Below is another video of a guy who took a little fall. Its not that large but he hits the back of his head and suffers memory damage. He forgets where he his and what happened. For the next six hours he cannot consolidate new memory and has to be told over and over again what happened. Its pretty crazy.

I don't mean to hate on anyone or be rude, just to illustrate a point. The moral of this story....please, wear a helmet. You might think it looks silly, or it ruins your hair or whatever. But you only have one brain, and it is easy to damage. Take care of it, don't sell out to look cool. It is cool to wear a helmet. Anyway, in you sport of choice you should not care what others think, but find enough validation in yourself, along with enough love and care for yourself to wear a helmet. 

For more information about longboard safety check out what this group of people are doing at The Longboard Coalition. 

Also I apologize if there was any language in the videos. I tried to preview them beforehand and I didn't catch anything. If there is please let me know and I can fix it. 

Thank You S-One Helmets!

In preparation for the trip, we've been looking for the best gear to bring with us. Crucial to the trip is the board, and we're grateful for the help from Kahuna Creations and their awesome Black Wave board. Just as important as the board, in my opinion, is the helmet. Both are essential and one should not go without the other. If you have a board and no helmet, don't ride it! Get a helmet first. If you have a helmet and no board, well...I suppose you can wear the helmet around. If you really want to. But unless you're trying to start a safety oriented fashion statement you probably want a board too.

My current helmet is a little small for my head and gets uncomfortable on long rides. I started doing some research to find a new helmet, and I was astounded to find out that my current helmet wasn't certified for safety. I even called the company's customer service to ask them about it. Longboard For Love has been looking for the best helmets for the trip. Safe helmets first. Stylish helmets second. Great news everyone...we found them.

We've been able to work something out with S-One Helmet Company. They have been friendly and helpful with us. We emailed them, explaining the project and our need, and within 45 minutes they had emailed back with more than enough help for us. What prompted us to contact S-One Helmets is their concern for safety. They really emphasize their dual certified helmets the most, and tried to inform their customers about helmet safety instead of and I liked that.

I'll talk about helmet certification in a later post, but this video does an incredible job at explaining and demonstrating what it means.

You may ask me, "Mason why should I wear a helmet? It messes up my hair. Its uncomfortable. I've never crashed yet." "Well," I may reply, "allow me to ascend my soapbox and tell you why."

BECAUSE NOT WEARING A HELMET IS IDIOTIC!!!

Every year, in the USA, there are about 900 deaths from injuries due to bicycle crashes. In 2011 there were 42 deaths related in skateboarding. Now these are deaths, not the concussions and brain damage that can easily be done to your skull and the three pounds of tapioca pudding inside your head. I wrote a post earlier about traumatic brain injury (TBI) and what happens. There are on average 473,947 emergency department visits for TBI each year for children 0-14 years old. The CDC says "Children aged 0 to 4 years, older adolescents aged 15 to 19 years, and adults aged 65 years and older are most likely to sustain a TBI." Below I've shown a chart with the statistics of TBI annually in the United States. The chart brings up a good question at the bottom. How many more people hit their head and suffer damage or bruising to their brain and never receive treatment for it.

So...what does a helmet do? Why don't I just sit inside and protect my head from the frightening world outside? Well...what a helmet does is, in short, slow down your head. When you crash your head is moving at a certain velocity. Upon impact your head comes to a sudden stop. The skull stops but the brain keeps moving and bounces around; bruising itself and tearing on the bone in the skull. If you are wearing a helmet it lengthens the time it takes for your head to stop when it hits something. This causes the impact to be less severe and optimizes your brains chances of survival in an impact. This is why we need to protect our heads. This is why S-One helmets is so wonderful. Because they care so much about certifying your helmets and protecting our heads. Wear a helmet!

The S-One Lifer

Now, if you are one of the valiant ones who has made it to the end of the post I have one more thing for you. My Behavioral Neurobiology professor made each of us students make an oath to him in class. We stood up, put our hands over our hearts, and promised to always wear helmets. He was kind enough to share the pledge we made with me and I've included it here. I expect all of you to make the same pledge. Post it in the comments with your name filled in, and wherever you are, stand up, put your hand over your heart, and pledge to wear a helmet. If anyone looks at your funny, invite them over, I'm sure they need it too.

I [your name] do solemnly swear that I will always wear a helmet when I engage in potentially dangerous activities such as riding a motorcycle, riding a scooter, skateboarding, riding a bike, skiing, horseback riding, playing hockey, lacrosse, football, and baseball, white-water rafting and kayaking, ice skating, roller skating, roller blading, sledding, unicycling, etc.

Longboard Helps: Which Helmet to Get?

A Viking helmet!
I actually don't reccomend
this for longboarding

Like I'm sure you've seen, I am a big advocate for helmets. If you are riding a board you are guaranteed to fall at some point in time. You need to be well protected. Thankfully if you break a wrist or an arm, your bones and muscles regenerate and heal. However, your brain cells don't regenerate like a broken bone do. Damage is often permanent. This may seems silly, but if our brain cells were always dying and regenerating, like skin cells or blood cells, you would be constantly forgetting and relearning things over and over. There is a method in this madness.

Since brain damages are permanent it is vital that we take care of it. In this post I want to talk about what to look for when purchasing a helmet. I am no authority on the subject and just got my information from reading and research. In the end the best thing you can do is read up on the subject and be safe.

As a younger person I didn't like to wear helmets. I thought they didn't look cool and were uncomfortable. It took a frightening crash and more information on helmets to convince me to wear one. I tried a few helmets but I ended up sticking with the basic Triple 8 Brainsaver. This is a nice helmet. It is great for simple skateboarding and longboarding. I love the terry-cloth liner inside and how comfortable it is. The model that I have, however, is not certified in any way. This means that I should not ride it on a bike, or at high speeds. It's perfect for the cruising and longboarding that I like to do. Especially good for a long distance trip.

Some of the best skateboard helmets are "dual-certified" to both the ASTM and CPSC standards. These provide much more protection for dangerous skating and bicycling.

But what does ASTM and CPSC mean? Well these are just tests that are run to see how well the helmets perform. A CSPS test is when they simulate a drop from 6 feet at a 14 mph impact. These kind of helmets are for bike riding. The ASTM test is a from from 3 feet at a 7 mph impact. ASTM helmets are made for skating. Helmets should be used for the proper activities and are not always guaranteed to prevent injury. But why take the chance without one.

In your quest for the right helmet you may hear about soft-foam or hard-foam helmets. This is just referring to the foam inside of the outer shell. This is what compresses as your head hits an object and helps slow down your head and reduce injury. A lot of helmets advertise as multiple impact, but, once again, why take the risk. After a bad crash or impact (and especially if you see damage to the helmet) you should throw it away and get another one. Small impacts you may be okay, but why gamble your brain on the $40 it takes to get a new helmet?

There are lots of different helmets out there and lots of good companies. Like I've mentioned before, my personal favorite, for the past 6 years, has been Triple 8. I like the design, and the comfort a lot. The helmets are quality and classy. Beyond the product itself Triple 8 is just a good company. I really like the forum they have where they take suggestions from people.

All that really matters though, is you get a helmet, and put it on your head when you ride. DO IT!

Helmets and Traumatic Brain Injury

This gave me a good laugh.

I'm a big advocate for helmets. I study psychology in school and I learn a lot about brain damage and its impact on us. Helmets are a necessity  They do quite a bit to save your brain and your head. You are your brain, without it you cannot function, so I say, lets all wear helmets!

The main thing that helmets do is they keep a closed head injury from becoming an open head injury. It is obviously preferable to keep your brain inside of your head rather than spread on the pavement. Especially because the consistency of a brain is like pudding, and it will not stay solid for long, but will "melt" out onto the pavement. Wear a helmet, keep your brain inside your head, and keep things from entering your brain.

Even with a closed head injury there is some damage that can be done. Your brain is a very mushy substance that floats in a liquid inside of your skull. When your head hits the pavement it has been accelerating. It hits the ground and stops quite suddenly. Sadly, your floating brain takes longer to stop. It will continue to accelerate until it hits the inside of your skull, this is called the coup. It will then bounce off your skull, move backwards, and then  hit the other side, this is called the contre-coup. Both of these impacts can cause severe damage to your brain known as Tramatic Brain Injury, or TBI.

Coup and Contrecoup

TBI is the leading cause of death and disability for children and adolescents. There are roughly 2,685 deaths a year due to TBI, and at least 37,000 hospitalizations with 435,000 emergency room visits. The most incidence of hospitalization and death occurs from ages 14-18 years old. There are different types of TBI, such as contusions which is bleeding in the brain. Or concussions  which is similar to a contusion but it includes the loss of consciousness. Depending on the severity of these one may develop mild to severe TBI. Loss of many forms of functioning can occur.

Along with concussion and contusion is Axonal Shearing. The inside of your skull is not smooth. My Behavioral Neurobiology teacher gave the good example that it is shaped like a skate park. Ramps, bowls, dips and hills. There are quite a few ridges inside your skull. When your skull rotates quickly and then stops even quicker, like hitting your head on the ground, your brain does not stop rotating and these ridges literally "shear" or tear through your brain matter, causing bleeding and severe neural damage.

Inside the top of your skull. Usually there are no
screws sticking into your head so...ignore those.
Pay attention to the ridges instead.

How does wearing a helmet help to prevent this? Well, most of this damage is cause by your speeding skull being stopped suddenly, while your brain takes a moment longer to slow down. Helmets help lengthen the time it takes to slow your skull down making the deceleration less damaging. As your head hits the ground, the foam in your helmet is crushed by your head. As it crushes it slows your head down gradually, rather than all at once. This causes the damage to be less severe, and can very well save your life, if not your neural functioning. 

This is why you should buy a new helmet if you get into a crash. The foam has been crushed and will not work the same again. It is safer to buy a new helmet. 

Wear a helmet, just do it.