Having seen his helmet and been there, I was thinking exactly the same thing. Aug 18, 2007
D'ya mean
THIS article :
Most of you know I had a rather violent get off while riding my KLR 650. I am finally getting clear headed enough to use my digital camera and I took some photos of my crashed helmet.
Photo of the right side. Evidently I landed on my right side (from the bruises and injuries) and slid: See the scratches?
From the front, scratches on the right side of the helmet. Can you see the mishaped indentation (flat spot) to the right of the top vent?
From the left side, where I must have slid into the guardrail's 12X10 support beam. Notice that the helmet shell is broken just at the bottom rear of the visor opening.
Different angle of the above picture.
Straight view of the indentation.
I can't see any flex or broken foam from the inside. I've pulled the cloth back and looked but found nothing worth taking a picture of so I left it intact. Evidently the foam liner did what it was supposed to do...compress and protect!
According to the Life-Flight crew, my riding gear saved my life. I choose to not argue about that. ATGATT and thank God I purchased the CyclePort Kevlar @ WFO and I was wearing it.
Bike: KLR650
Conditions: Hot Summer day, 95+ degrees, pavement (after riding dirt roads for hours)
Speed 40-45 mph
Gear:Above shown helmet, Cycleport Kevlar Mesh, IIRC: Hiking Boots, Riding gloves
Cause: DEHYDRATION. I passed out and fell off the bike.
Effect: KLR fell on left side, I landed on my right side and slid headfirst into a guard-rail support beam....[SIZE=8pt]
it didn't move a silly millimeter and suffered no ill effects.[/SIZE]
Result: Very expensive helicopter ride I don't remember followed by even more expensive hospital/medical expenditures (Thank God for good company medical insurance).
Injuries: No road rash! 2 cracked vertebrae, right shoulder blade cracked in 2 places, right shoulder dislocation, multiple cracked ribs, right knee ligaments stretched (3 main ligaments) when my foot tangled with the bike as we were sliding, concussion, major muscle strains on left side of my neck (I couldn't turn my head left for 2 1/2 months until Physical Therapy loosened and helped heal that muscle group).
Recovery, because of my age (62), is an ongoing event. I still have remnants and must continue a stretching regiment for my shoulders and neck muscles
Lessons: Stay hydrated! Where the best gear you can afford.
Discussion: Will like be engendered. I know there are those who are evangelists for different helmets based on different test models. I also know that some of them argue using the misfortune of myself and others as the basis of their subjective arguments, HOWEVER, none of them have been willing to subject there own equipment or bodies to the objective limits of misfortune suffered by those of us who have seriously crashed have survived.
You WILL hear some say that my injuries would have been less severe had I not been wearing a Shoei. My response, "Perhaps!" Neither they or I can know with any certainty. It's just as likely a different ("softer") helmet may have broken away at the chin bar or given way. It's also likely that since my helmet was older and well used it didn't give me the protection a newer helmet might have afforded. Again....until someone is willing to subject themselves to the same set of impact parameters (and I simply refuse to duplicate the scenario) we will never know.
The discussion about the severity of my concussion (Yes, I had a blood pool on my brain that was x-rayed daily when I was in the hospital and then twice weekly during follow up Trauma Clinic visits for a month while the doctors were monitoring the absorption of that pool back into my system, the volume of my lung cavity, the healing of my bones (neck, shoulder blade and ribs) along with the soft tissue damage (I was black and blue from my right knee to my right shoulder) and my pulled ligaments. Would a different helmet have prevented my short-term memory loss? NONE of us can know.
Would a different helmet have lessened the impact and thus the shock/impact injuries to my neck, shoulder and ribs (thus ameliorating the need for a
on each lung)? It seems to me that it's rather easy to use my instance to jump to a convenient conclusion in support of whatever position one wants to take.
My opinion: Own the best equipment you can afford and WEAR IT. It's YOUR responsibility to decide what is the best for you. That's part of being a grown-up in our society.
