My best friend went down

[nomad561]

I wish him a speedy and full recovery.

[joker]

Originally Posted by CoachA

Just spent a couple hours at his house and he is doing much better. He spent 8 hours in the dentist chair on Saturday getting his teeth reworked...that in and of itself is torture. He had plastic bits and pieces in his lower jaw and some other interesting stories about the situation. He has a great sense of humor about the ordeal at the hospital and he intends to ride again when his bike is fixed.

Interesting side bar to the discussion is that the FHP trooper told him if he had been wearing his helmet he would have been dead. He said his helmet would have hung up on the windshield and his body would have went over the top first with his head still in contact with the windshield. ????

Teeth? Who needs 'em?
Seriously though, it's great to hear he's getting better!

[unwind2]

Hope your friend continues to improve each day.

[flightdoc]

glad he is better and has his humor intact.

I don't see how wearing his helmet would have killed him. Interesting comment from a law enforcement person.

vin

[dougster]

I am grateful your friend was not hurt worse, and pray that he will heal quickly. Hope he is up and ready to ride by next season.

You said, "Interesting side bar to the discussion is that the FHP trooper told him if he had been wearing his helmet he would have been dead. He said his helmet would have hung up on the windshield and his body would have went over the top first with his head still in contact with the windshield."

I have a hard time buying that one. Every statistic and study I have read shows pretty overwhelming statistical evidence that lives are saved by wearing helmets, not lost. And not only lives, but head and face injuries are especially prevented (Especially with fullface helmets).

[cactusjack]

Originally Posted by dougster

I am grateful your friend was not hurt worse, and pray that he will heal quickly. Hope he is up and ready to ride by next season.

You said, "Interesting side bar to the discussion is that the FHP trooper told him if he had been wearing his helmet he would have been dead. He said his helmet would have hung up on the windshield and his body would have went over the top first with his head still in contact with the windshield."

I have a hard time buying that one. Every statistic and study I have read shows pretty overwhelming statistical evidence that lives are saved by wearing helmets, not lost. And not only lives, but head and face injuries are especially prevented (Especially with fullface helmets).

Obviously in this case, overwhelming statistical evidence may not apply. True, a helmet will protect you in the event of an impact to the head, but if that helmet were to become caught on something, inertia combined with the mass of the body could result in decapitation or a broken neck. The helmet would be found as a contributing factor to a fatal injury.

Helmets won't save your life in every possible scenario, just like seat belts and air bags won't. There are many fatalities where a head injury is secondary to fatal traumatic injury elsewhere on the body. I'm not picking on you, Doug - just pointing out that there is no way a helmet can save a life in every case. They just can't. Your odds of survival are much greater with a helmet, but they only protect you from a blow to the head.

[flightdoc]

The only part of this whole scenerio that bothers me is that a law enforcement officer would make such a statement. Here in New Hampshire we do not have a helmet law and given the "live free or die" motto and attitudes that would just feed the "helmets don't make a difference" argument. A stupid one but many people here don't wear them. I agree with Dougster, I can't vision how striking the windshield straight on , with your helmet on, would cause more damage or death then if you weren't wearing a helmet.

vin

[dantama]

Here's my take on the helmet would have killed you angle.

There is a ton of bias in peoples minds that if you didn't have a helmet on, you deserve to die. The media perpetuates it by always saying in the stories of motorcycle crash deaths, "the rider was not wearing a helmet." That is code for he'd dumb and deserved to die. That leads to people saying things behind the families back like, he was an idiot, look how he left his wife with no kids because of that stupid bike and not wearing a helmet.

Sometimes the hospital and on scene authorities want to spare the rider all that bull sh*t. They lie. They have no training and expertise to make pronouncements, but make them anyway just to spare the rider the BS he's going to get.

The officer in the story wanted to spare him a ton of grief and said what he said, knowing that the whole teeth knocked out and broken jaw was going to get him a ton of grief.

The officer likely doesn't have any true expertise in motorcycle crash dynamics. Things like angle of impact, velocity of the bodies forward movement and angle, etc. etc. etc. So with no true expertise (or a boat load of luck that the one guy for states around with that kind of knowledge just happened to be pulling up on this scene) the officer gave the guy an out that he could use on his family and associates to spare him the "you should have been wearing your helmet" grief.

When I was in a severe crash 18 years ago with no helmet, the doctors at the hospital gave my family the same treatment. "It wouldn't have mattered if he had a helmet on or not", and I believe it was said just to make me not have to hear about it for the next couple of years. From what I know now, it clearly would have been better if I had a helmet on (I had a skull fracture on the back of my head, helmets do make that better than otherwise), but that doctor got my family off my back as a courtesy.

I've heard of other situations with the same thing going on. It's a courtesy extended to riders who have more to worry about than what kind of grief they are going to get for not wearing a helmet.

[coacha]

That was kinda my thought process too Dan.

[davidjones1]

I hatre to hear about your friend Ron I am glad he is doing better prayers for him and his wife.
ride safe

[flightdoc]

Hey Dan,
I wonder what could happen when a rider , given your take above, decides to start riding without a helmet all the time because all those experts said that he would've die with one on? Or someone reading these type of threads decides to stop wearing a helmet.
Seems to me honesty is the best policy.
By the way, I had a very serious crash in May of 2007. The doctor told my family that if I "had not been wearing a helmet" I would've have been killed.
Just seems to me that any person specially professional types ie: police, emt, hospital folks that make statements as suggested by Dan, they would be an easy target for a law suit not to mention being the recipient of the "dumbass award" of the year.

My 2cents

vin

[dougster]

CJ, no, I didn't feel picked on. I think people should have the right to decide whether to wear a helmet. I also agree with your point that helmets do not save lives in every single case. I did not intend to imply otherwise. After all, riding a bike is inherently dangerous, and we can indeed get hurt. I just have a difficult time seeing what the helmet could get caught on on the windshield of the bike, that's all.

I also think Dan has a point, in that sometimes well meaning people try to cover for you, and there are indeed people who think you "deserve to die for not wearing a helmet." I disagree with people who think that way.

My point was more along the lines of what flightdoc said in both of his posts. Honesty is best, but choose well how you say it. And especially if you might be considered (rightly or wrongly) an authority/expert in that area, because people will act on what you say.

We all say things in these situations to help the people make it through the trauma. Sometimes we say things we shouldn't and sometimes we say just the right thing. Sometimes it is better to say nothing, and just be there for people, rather than lie. Honesty, tempered with kindness and love, is most helpful.

Coacha, how are you doing in all this? You O.K.? I really appreciate that you are there for your friend. That is some of the best recuperative help there is!

[dantama]

Originally Posted by dougster

CJ, no, I didn't feel picked on. I think people should have the right to decide whether to wear a helmet. I also agree with your point that helmets do not save lives in every single case. I did not intend to imply otherwise. After all, riding a bike is inherently dangerous, and we can indeed get hurt. I just have a difficult time seeing what the helmet could get caught on on the windshield of the bike, that's all.

I also think Dan has a point, in that sometimes well meaning people try to cover for you, and there are indeed people who think you "deserve to die for not wearing a helmet." I disagree with people who think that way.

My point was more along the lines of what flightdoc said in both of his posts. Honesty is best, but choose well how you say it. And especially if you might be considered (rightly or wrongly) an authority/expert in that area, because people will act on what you say.

We all say things in these situations to help the people make it through the trauma. Sometimes we say things we shouldn't and sometimes we say just the right thing. Sometimes it is better to say nothing, and just be there for people, rather than lie. Honesty, tempered with kindness and love, is most helpful.

Coacha, how are you doing in all this? You O.K.? I really appreciate that you are there for your friend. That is some of the best recuperative help there is!

+1

You said how I feel very clearly.

[dantama]

Originally Posted by flightdoc

Hey Dan,
I wonder what could happen when a rider , given your take above, decides to start riding without a helmet all the time because all those experts said that he would've die with one on? Or someone reading these type of threads decides to stop wearing a helmet.
Seems to me honesty is the best policy.
By the way, I had a very serious crash in May of 2007. The doctor told my family that if I "had not been wearing a helmet" I would've have been killed.
Just seems to me that any person specially professional types ie: police, emt, hospital folks that make statements as suggested by Dan, they would be an easy target for a law suit not to mention being the recipient of the "dumbass award" of the year.

My 2cents

vin

Vin, it is very easy and common to tell the rider who does have a helmet on, that it likely saved their life. And it probably is usually true. A neurologist told me that the brain is about like too warm jello, and if you slosh it back and forth in the skull, it does a lot of bad things. A helmet slows the sudden stop down, and spreads it over a longer distance to a stop. The warm jello doesn't slosh as hard.

So it's very easy to rightly say that a helmet saved you.

Harder to defend, is the sentiment "you're lucky you weren't wearing a helmet" type comments. But the comments keep being made by those with some supposed authority or expertise anyway.

I just gave a rational explanation for why they are making irrational statements. And I would suppose most of us know somebody who was told a similar statement.

Like dougster said, people in difficult situations have a compelling need to say something of comfort. I'm always amazed at the unknowable lies told around deaths. The "he would have wanted..." and "God must have..." etc etc. Jim Bob's cousin who hasn't seen him since they were kids doesn't know what Jim Bob would have wanted, but he says it to the widow anyway. Whether it is accurate or not.

For some reason cops and doctors do the same, and I would think with good intentions.

I agree that honesty is best. It the honest truth would be too harsh, don't say anything at all. But the potential for harm from misinformation may be too much for it to be a valid strategy.

I know in my crash that I would have been better off with a helmet on. The doctor told my family different. As harsh as my family is, it probably saved me a ton of grief. But my story may have been passed around enough at the time to other riders for some to think it was true. And that would be harmful and it shouldn't have been done in my opinion.

[unwind2]

I've just gotta say.....you guys are all so cool. We can take a subject such as this...dicuss it in a civil manner and everybody can glean info from it. KawaNow is great!

Okay...off my soap box now.