To wear a helmet or not?

My son is almost 8 and he and I are starting the wonderful venture of inverts. What are peoples opinions of whether or not to wear a helmet or not. It seems like some do and some dont. Any thoughts would be greatly helpful.

Someone posted recently that their doctor did not recommend wearing a helmet unless there is a danger of hitting something solid. Sliders, Kickers etc. According to the post the helmet gives more surface area for the water to hit and is easier to get a concussion. I'm no doctor and it didn't make sense to me but what ever. Some where them to protect aqainst blown ear drums.

Ron covered my opinion. If there's a chance of hitting something solid, wear a helmet. On the water my primary interest would be the ear protection.

i used to wear a helmet due to a few concussions trying 3s. it definitely raised the confidence level while lowering the number of painful crashes, and eventually, i started landing 3s.

with that said, i got a concussion, albeit a mild one, wearing a helmet. in short, it'll help to prevent many painful wrecks and concussions, but will NOT completely prevent them all.

/thread jack

Joe, post those pictures dude! I want to see that girl getting nailed by the rooster tail!

/end threadjack

taking an edge catch to head smack with a helmet on will definately not hurt as much without. I reccommend it; i wear my helmet when specifically trying new tricks when there is a greater chance of failure but not when just freeriding.

Rod this is only partially true, last time I did a good one I was wearing a helmet but the first thing to hit the water was my face not my head, I would have felt like I got hit with a 2 x 4 helmet or not lol.

I wear a helmet if I'm doing sliders, skating, or if I'm working on something blind. On inverts my experience has been that the helmet has given me some neck strains I would have otherwise avoided, however that said the ear protection a helmet offers is also a very big thing.

I was skating back in the day with a friend and he took a nasty spill of a loading dock and busted his head pretty bad. blood everywhere. He was fine after some stitches and rest. The doctor said if he had a helmet all he would have gotten was a headache. Ever since then I have always worn a helmet. I have heard the argument that it increases surface area and may do more damage on the water but I have asked my doctor the same question and he does not agree. "Helmets help period" are his exact words. Last weekend I went to a cookout at my In laws and there where a few docs in the house and they all said wear a helmet. I love the feel of the helmet it gives me more confidence and protects my eardrums. I have took some pretty bad falls on the water and no head injuries at all. (couple headaches) They may look a little goofy but I'm too old to give a sh** about that anymore. So my suggestion is to get him a helmet. my 2cents

I think that thread with the helmet surface area ignored that helmets have padding. Yes, it increases the mass, but slightly. Its the acceleration that it decreases but decelerating a little slower via the padding. In the whole F = MA formula, the A is changed a lot more than the M.

I just got one and have worn it a couple times. Its comfortable and you arent even aware of it pretty fast. Just like riding with board shorts! oh wait.. ummm

(Message edited by sloshake on June 08, 2007)

not needed...althought last 4th of july my friend hit himself in the head with his board trying 3's...needed 2 staples...probably would have been fine with a helmet. i guess it would come down to comfort vs. the chance of you ever needing the protection. is it worth being uncomfortable for the .1% chance you might need the protection?? also, i know this is a horrible reason not to wear one...but i think it just looks silly to be wakeboarding (rails aside) wearing a helmet. i feel the same way about bicycle helmets.

uh,,,, no. unless............ hitting sliders. Pretty soon we will have kids wearing helmet walking down the street, just in cast.

They will do more good then bad IMO.
With that said, its up to you.

I teach at an academic medical center and Drs. are not going by any evidence when they do or do not recommend helmets in water sports. They are offering you their best opinion. I did a quick medline search and found zero articles, though there are several on helmets and snowboarding snowskiing where the benefits are well established.

I think almost everyone would agree that when there are solid surfaces involved, wear a helmet. If you are prone to ear drum ruptures, wear a helmet. If you are the rider that tends to have the board come near your head, wear a helmet. I have personally not seen a board near my head or any of my kids, but have seen enough gashes posted here to know it is a real risk for some.

As has been stated, the increased surface of your melon with a helmet is going to make it decelerate faster on a faceplant type crash, but how much? who knows? And how much of that is offset by the padding???? Who knows? Without an engineering study, it will be impossible to know for sure so you have to live with your preferences and intuition.

Are there any engineering graduate students looking for a thesis topic????

Jeffrey-
I was just saying that in my own personal experiences, the headsmacks I take with the helmet don't leave me wondering where I am like the falls without it do.

worse thing you can do is wear it and not blow out your ear drum/s and ya maybe look goofy, but if it is common on your boat/lake etc then you really don't look goofy.

Or don't wear it and take your chances, all it takes is one time to blow that drum or the board to come off funny and you need staples and you'll be bit*&^@# that you knew you should have been wearing a helmet.

my personal opinion, watch 2 blown ear drums and that was enough to convince me. at first I hated it, felt like it threw me off, but now unless I am just crusing its alsway on like the vest, and everybody on my boat that is new (to wakeboarding)I have them wear it.

just to put it out there, would you let your 5+ year ride without one?

your choice.....

i never used to wear a helmet cause i didnt think i needed one cause i wasent trying anything too hard. I went out one day and went for a switch 180. I wasen't thinking and caught my edge doing a surface 180 in preperation for the 180. The board scorpianed behind me and nailed me in the head. (It stayed on my feet also i didnt know i was that flexible)I went to the hospital and had to wait for 5 and a half hours when i could have been riding. Now i wear one whenever i ride.

thank you for all the comments. It is clear to me that me and my son will join the helmet geek club. It seems like the pros outweigh the cons.

i just started wearing it, don't think it's uncomfortable at all, i don't even notice it and Roddyrod, i totally agree. Before helmet... bell rung many times... since helmet... bell not rung at all

"Before helmet... bell rung many times... since helmet... bell not rung at all"

Totaly agree. Same results here. My son and I both wear one.

these are gonna be the new wake helmets to have

http://www.bernunlimited.com/

the new wake product line is gonna be SIC!

BERN!

the one time that i wore a helmet, i think it saved me from getting a concussion, definately going to look into one

the baker looks sick
and also, i wear a helmet, and i really do think that its saved me from some headaches. it may be because im getting better at crashing but i honestly think it helps

dont think you are joining the "geek club" go out there, throw down and no one notices you are wearing a helmet.
i wear one all the time. i didnt earlier this year and screwed up on an OHH and wound up with a concussion. ive had my bell rung with a helmet but never a concussion

My problem with helmets is that people all of a sudden get this confidence that they can't be hurt with a helmet on and try things that are out of there league. You see this all the time in snowboarding, someone gets a lid on and thinks they will be just fine trying anything. I wear a helmet only for hitting sliders, not to say it isn't a good idea to wear it all the time but just make sure you still ride within your limits. Nothing is worse than seeing someone broke off saying, "well i was wearing my helmet".

I speak from my own personal experience. I have wakeboarded for many years now and I wear a helmet no matter what anyone says. I've had one concussion without helmet and many severe headaches. O concussions and 0 severe headaches after riding with helmet. Kids will wear a helmet only if you insist on it. Otherwise it does'nt seem cool to them. Mostly cause their freinds tell them so. Pros wear helmets when competing because of the sliders involved. But I have'nt seen any of them get neck injuries because of it. A helmet must fit and be snug to prevent excess drag. Also I have seen plenty of people get hit in the head by their boards and most end up get stitches. The helmets definately protect against ear drum ruptures.

Whenever this thread comes up I typically post this picture of Tyler. This year I'll just post a link:

http://www.wakeworld.com/Galleries/GetImage.asp?GalleryID=226&ImageID=100

Thank you Steve this is one of the kids I have riddin with many times. He almost died from this injury. Thank God he's alive and well.

Damn!!

What happened?

Tyler was riding in Florida getting ready for a major competition. A major hurricane had come through the area the day before. As he was riding there was a tree stump in the water. Coming down from a trick he saw the stump and landed directly on it with his head. Thanks to his friends they realized that he needed to go to the hospital. He had bleeding around the brain and needed immediate attention or he would have died.

No helmets unless your hitting sliders or your water is shallow. I have a shred ready SSC I wear for the rails but I don't use it out on the water.

360 to concussion. Always wear one now!. Scary thing was when I realized what was going on I was driving the boat and pulling a boarder. If someone has what you think is a bad fall and he/she seems a little off don't let them drive!!!

There has been many threads on this. It is your own preference to wear or not. My experience is this. When Taylor was 6 she was riding without a helmet and fell on a 1 wake 180. When she fell, she "scorpioned" and the board came up & hit her in the head and had to get 10 staples. After this I spoke with as many coaches/experts, and a few Drs. They all said the same thing that wearing a helmet would have prevented it. HOWEVER the additional strain on a CHILD'S neck could be more damaging than stitches or staples to the head. After this Taylor ONLY wears a helmet when she is hitting sliders with the exception of when she is doing a "coaching set" where she has the Headzone Helmet to where we can talk to her without stopping the boat. My research for my daughter has resulted in Taylor & I deciding that wearing a helmet on freeriding is our choice and we have decided not to wear one. The other reason for small kids not to wear them is they normally do not fit properly which could result in the helmet coming down and breaking the bridge of their nose. Most importantly talk to as many people in the sport that you can. Listen to their opinion and make a decision for yourself and your kid. THERE IS NO RIGHT OR WRONG ANSWER.

A helmet increases the surface area of your head which makes your head slow down faster coming into the water on a hard fall and smashes your brain into your skull harder. Most helmets float too and when hitting the water will resist going under so it will pull at your neck. I would only wear a helmet when hitting sliders.

The helmet has padding and thus your head will slow down a lot slower.

Whether a helmet fits the head of a small child or not has no bearing on the overall safety of helmets themselves. The small kid should get a fitting helmet. That's like blaming a car for an accident when the driver didn't have their seat properly adjusted so they can see.

Maybe manufacturers need to start putting "center spines" on their helments for super soft head landings...

Quote-Whether a helmet fits the head of a small child or not has no bearing on the overall safety of helmets themselves

Gerald
I feel you are completely wrong on your statement. Whether a helmet fits the head of a small child has all the bearing on the safety of helmets on a CHILD. This post was about his almost 8 year old son wearing a helmet or not. If a helmet does not fit a child properly it has the possibility of "bucketing". Where the helmet will go forward or backward depending on the fall. When the helmet violently goes forward it has the possibility of breaking the nose, or backward causing neck strain. Many of the helmets that are out there do not properly fit such a small head as a 5,6,7,or so year old kid. Once again this is what EVERY coach and the few doctors I spoke with after Taylor's injury all concluded. The risk of them hitting there head on the board vs. the possible neck strain or breaking their nose has to be the decision of the parents and what they feel comfortable with.
Please remember this thread started out about an almost 8 year old kid not an adult or teenagers experience. The most common with kids riding will be the "scorpion" not a concussion. So when you only weigh those two things, it was my decision after asking many people and many questions for my 8 year old daughter to not wear a helmet. THIS DECISION HAS TO BE THE PARENTS NOT A MAJORITY in a discussion board.

I'm not saying a properly fitting helmet is not exceptionally important. Nor am I saying that an improperly fitted helmet is safe.

I am saying that you can't put down helmets as a general rule because of an experience with a helmet that was not fitted properly. If the helmet is fitted properly and then still is not providing protection, that is a viable complaint against helmets.

That was where my analogy to driving a car came in. If you don't adjust the seat properly providing the correct driving position to see the road/handle the wheel/etc that can lead to an accident. That does not necessarily mean the car itself is unsafe though. The car was not fitted properly for the driver.

Perhaps this thread is a sign that companys need to be making smaller helmets to fit children more properly. Unfortunately, because this is a business, it may come down more to money than to safety as to the availability of youth sized helmets. Had Taylor been wearing a properly fitted helmet would it have prevented the injury?

Gerald- I agree with some of your points. I am not generalizing helmets. I am saying for a small child MOST helmets do not fit them and when you deal with that aspect then we are talking a whole different field. Most children are not riding at the level to deal with concussions. I also agree that it is a business and the availability of youth sized helmets are VERY limited. And as I said above if Taylor would have even been wearing an improperly fitted helmet she probably wouldn't have had 10 staples. But this was a very freak accident and I have decided to take the small % of risk from the scorpioning vs the possible broken nose or strained neck. Now Taylor is doing inverts and it is almost unanimous between the coaches to take the helmets off when she is just riding doing inverts. With that said she does not even come close to hitting sliders without one. Maybe I'm contradicting myself but this is our choice.

Yesterday I was at full whip doing a back slide and caught an edge.I can honestly say I believe I would've got knocked out without a helmet.I hit so hard I was fading to black and my only thought was to get to the surface.I wear a Shredready scrappy,fits pretty close[not much increase in surface area],and doesn't look too dorky.My shoulders and the back of my arms were totally stinging and numb.I think it saved me from a serious concussion.No matter how many times or how comfortable you are with a trick ,sh-t happens.