As Durango Mountain Resort prepares to open for the winter season Friday, many skiers and snowboarders will wear helmets to protect themselves against injury.
Helmets have quickly proliferated among skiers. Last winter, 70 percent of skiers and snowboarders nationwide wore helmets, setting a new record for helmet usage in the ski industry.
Helmet use has nearly tripled since the 2002-03 season, according to the National Ski Areas Association.
Looking around the slopes in Southwest Colorado, it’s readily apparent that ski helmets – often outfitted with add-ons such as music players and video cameras – are steadily replacing the reliable wool beanie.
“You can just see that it’s dramatic,” said Gary Derck, CEO of Durango Mountain Resort. “It’s the overwhelming majority that wear them now.”
While helmets are rapidly being adopted, their use leaves a host of questions unanswered: How effective are they? Do they prevent some injuries but not others? Does wearing one alter a skier’s risk-taking behavior? And are they worth the cost?
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission began recommending in 1999 that skiers and snowboarders wear helmets after concluding helmet use could prevent or reduce the severity of 44 percent of head injuries to adults, and 53 percent of head injuries to children younger than 15. The commission estimated that 7,700 head injuries annually could be prevented or reduced in severity. The commission also said helmet use could prevent about 11 skiing- and snowboarding-related deaths annually.
In 2011, New Jersey became the first state to require children to wear ski helmets.
Ski-industry groups say it is important to know that helmets work best in the least severe accidents.
“Helmets are designed to reduce the severity of head injuries, but they are most effective at providing protection from a direct blow to the head at speeds under 14 mph,” the National Ski Areas Association says on the website for its Lids on Kids campaign. “Keep in mind, if you lose control and hit a tree, object or another skier at moderate or high speed, a helmet may not prevent or reduce a serious injury.”
Experts say the most severe ski accidents simply are too traumatic for helmets to be of much help. When a skier hits a tree at high speed, for example, the brain, heart and other internal organs will keep moving against the body’s skeletal structure.
“There’s massive internal injuries when you hit a tree,” said Buz Branch, director of the Hesperus Ski Patrol. “When you have that kind of deceleration, you can cause things to let loose inside.”
Branch, a registered nurse and paramedic, wears a helmet, as all Hesperus ski patrollers are required to do.
Helmets fail to prevent some deaths
Durango Mountain Resort also requires ski patrollers to wear helmets, and children younger than 14 are required to wear a helmet while participating in ski or snowboard lessons or other youth programs. DMR employees must wear helmets when skiing on the clock.
Elizabeth Edwards, director of risk management at Durango Mountain Resort, said wearing a helmet is a personal choice, and it’s up to each skier and snowboarder to analyze the benefits and limitations of helmet use.
“No matter what piece of equipment you have, it’s still your responsibility to be aware of your surroundings and to understand the inherent risks of the sport you’re participating in,” she said.
Some skier deaths in recent years at Southwest Colorado ski areas were attributed to reasons other than head injuries, and in some of the cases, the skiers were wearing helmets.
A 25-year-old Denver woman was killed at Silverton Mountain in January 2012 after she slid 1,500 feet. The woman, Sydney Elizabeth Owens, was killed by blunt force trauma while wearing a helmet.
A 14-year-old Bayfield girl, Madeline “Maddie” Milner, died in January 2010, after hitting a tree at DMR. She was wearing a helmet, and her death was attributed to liver injury.
A 19-year-old skier from Kansas was killed in March 2012 at Wolf Creek Ski Area when he hit a tree. He was not wearing a helmet, but his death was attributed to chest trauma, The Denver Post reported.
In December 2010, a 22-year-old University of Colorado student died of suffocation and hypothermia at Wolf Creek after falling in deep snow. It was not clear if he was wearing a helmet.
Durango’s Logan Jameson, 19, died in January 2008 after skiing off an out-of-bounds cliff. He suffered a minor head injury and suffocated in the snow. A news account does not indicate whether Jameson was wearing a helmet.
Studies suggest protective effect
“There are a lot of head injuries in Durango, unfortunately,” said Dr. Bill Cooper of Durango Neurology. “It’s a variety. You see people who fall down in the snow, and you see people who run into objects.”
Helmets tend to protect against skull fractures. Concussions are trickier, Cooper said.
“The brain is soft and the skull is hard, so even with a helmet, the brain is going to get jostled back and forth,” he said. “The helmet may protect from fractures, but it may not protect from concussions. It’s better than not having it at all. But people with helmets still get injured.”
A 2010 meta-analysis by the Canadian medical journal CMAJ of previous ski-helmet studies found helmet use reduces the risk of head injury by 35 percent. The analysis found mixed evidence about whether helmets cause skiers and snowboarders to take greater risks.
One study found helmet users were more likely to have injuries related to jumping. The meta-analysis concluded helmet users overall have no higher injury risk than nonusers.
Derck said he does not believe wearing a helmet encourages skiers and snowboarders to take more risks. Rather, he said he’s more worried about skiers paying more attention to their phones than the ski runs.
“I don’t see behavior changing because of the helmet,” he said. “I’m more worried about these other distractions we have in our life. How do we get people to focus on what they’re doing and not being oblivious?”
Many models of ski helmet can be bought for less than $100. Some familiar brands produce them, including K2, Salomon, Smith and Giro.
They can be found at local shops, online and at the popular annual Hesperus Ski Swap.
Branch said he’s been wearing a helmet for about a decade, and he’s sold on them.
“They’re designed to fit. They keep you warm,” he said. “They’re great. They’re well-padded and definitely the way to go. Helmets are cool.”
cslothower@durangoherald.com
