Helmet Stories, Saves, Etc. In Past Posts

[RickI]

I was asked to find some posts dealing with kiteboarding helmet use, injury avoided or minimized and related articles. A helmet may not help you survive an impact accident depending on the nature of the impacts involved. Then again, it might, you never know in advance how you will strike, immediate and long term consequences or realistically, whether you will even have the accident in the first place. If you aren't wearing a lid, it is 100% guaranteed to do you no good whatsoever, thinking of guys who left it off when they had accidents and those who never bothered in the first place. If you do wear a helmet it is important that it be properly designed for the special demands of kiting, fit well and be comfortable. Also, if you have a prior neck injury or weakness in that area, you would do well to consider if kiting is a good activity to pursue, with or without a helmet.

It is worth noting that helmets routinely help to avoid and minimize accidents worldwide in numerous activities. Many kiters have been dragged and/or lofted since the sport has been around, some have died, some lived with injury, some recovered and some just had the hell scared out of them. Even more have been hit by boards, floating objects, etc. etc.. You wear safety gear for just in case using your best efforts, training and common sense to avoid the problem in the first place. Despite all this and often aided by complacency, accidents still happen.

I have been helped out many times by helmet use while kiting from both major and small impacts over the last 18 years of kiting. I easily could have had been knocked unconscious and drowned recently in a nasty incident being driven into rocks by breaking waves. Still writing that one up. As I was wearing a helmet and impact vest as always and with some luck, I came through ok. The first time was 16 years ago under more extreme conditions, it made sense then for me, still does. Anyway, it is up to the rider to decide whether to use safety gear. I hope they do it on the basis of good information. That said, here is some food for thought.

Doctors on Helmets
viewtopic.php?t=2364753&p=744031

Never too cool for a helmet
viewtopic.php?t=2385537&p=849049

Helmets for kiting
viewtopic.php?t=2371247&p=706835

Helmet? Never!
https://www.kiteforum.com/viewtopic.php ... 9&start=30

Good Helmet Article From An Expert
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2313504&start=0

ACCIDENT DETAILS - WARNING GRAPHIC PHOTOS
viewtopic.php?t=2312791

Kiting Fatality From Impact In 11 to 12 kts.
viewtopic.php?t=2316233

Fatality In Colorado, USA (12 to 15 kts.)
viewtopic.php?t=2316234

Near fatal accident at sandbanks, poole
viewtopic.php?t=2359529

A recent post dealing with helmet selection
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2390255

Concussions & Water Impacts
viewtopic.php?t=2385544&p=849054

600 Ft. Near Fatal Lofting - Jupiter, FL, USA (An extreme lofting with no helmet, showing what can be survived in a powered lofting WITH luck)
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2334480

SBC Kiteboard on Helmets, Injury Avoided?
viewtopic.php?f=131&t=2303394

TEN ACCIDENTS PRESENTED - Brain Pans, Who Needs "EM? (2003)
viewtopic.php?t=12993

The First Lofting (Rider Likely Survived Per Dr. Due To Helmet)
viewtopic.php?t=2367875&p=679658

Kiting, Loftings & Injury - Images
viewtopic.php?t=2372670&p=719850

Ironically, there are still more posts, quite a few of them. Read this over and give it some thought.

Thanks,

FKA, Inc.

transcribed by:
Rick Iossi

.

[Bille]

If just (1) person , is kept out of the ER , because of the effort Rick placed
into making this Thread ; then your time was Worth it !!
And the quote below ; kinda says it ALL .

from : viewtopic.php?t=2367875&p=679658

...
My neurologists had said that without the helmet, the impact might well have been fatal. He had some doubt at the time about my making it through the first night in the hospital. It was pretty bad even with a helmet on
...

Other than a dislocated toe i got from walking over to pump up my kite ; i Never bin
hurt while kite boarding. If i hadn't had a helmet on ; NO Fricken way, could i say that.
The day i got taken out by a run-away kite ; i got slammed Hard into a rock on the beach
and had to get a new helmet because of it. I ain't very Lucky ; and need all the ODDS i
can get, (to survive). I had TWO kites pulling me that day ; it was only blowing 13Kts.

Bille

The picture in Ricks Thread , that mostly made me think a helmet Might be useful ; that would
be the one below .
from : viewtopic.php?t=2312791

[sarc]

Here's a few.

I was still learning to kite. Was preparing to land kite on the beach, so rode to shore, dismounted, let board go and turned to look at the kite while chest high in water. Shorebreak picked up my board and threw it on the back of my head. Was wearing a helmet, so saw stars and was disoriented for a few seconds. Without helmet i would have gotten a concussion.

Many years later, bridle wrap on launch, deathloop on shore, passed out for a few seconds hitting my head on sand while wearing a helmet. I woke up being dragged by the kite, hit release and was 6 weeks out with rib injury (I was also wearing a vest!!!). Without helmet I would have had head injury.

Fast backloop on water, slapped head hard on missed landing, disoriented and 10 minutes headache while wearing a helmet. Without it I might have passed out.

[downunder]

Hm,

I wear helmet and I actually make helmets and a big fan of it.

BUT, there is always a but. Consider this: Australian Govt. made wearing a helmet compulsory when cycling. Long time ago.
On the contrary, wearing a helmet is not compulsory in the Netherlands. There are millions of bicycle riders on the road every single day. It is a way of life.

There are also millions of overweight ppl in Australia who will never ever made an effort to go shopping with a bicycle. It is different culture. It is also promoted by the Government to use more cars and less Public transport ( WA Premier doesn't believe in PT).
Hence, giving ppl a choice to use a helmet or not might get them more into cycling, as a result reducing a number of obesity and hart diseases, which is a number one killer in OZ (way less ie in France).

Just look at Paris. The rental bicycle Network over the city transformed the way how ppl travel short distances. This just wouldn't happen if the helmets are compulsory.

I, on the contrary, was never hit in the helmet. But I do have a lot of injuries. One happened when my backprotector crushed my wrist when snowboarding. Yep, every showboarder knows the wrist guard might transfer the force to your collar bone. Done that as well. Three times now. Done my hip. Done my T12-13. I spiralled back to Earth with my paraglider. Number of surgeries.

Do I promote helmets et al.? Not so ever. If one life is saved, what is this in the grand scheme of ppl lost every singe day? Or animals? Or trees?

If encouraging wearing a helmet, I would encourage planting a tree or adopt a greyhound. Do something for this Planet, it is not always about an individual and individualism ( which is highly promoted by the Western economies).

At the end, what we will eat if EVERYONE is saved on this Planet, every cancer cured and every disease eradicated?

[TheJoe]

Saves my bald head from sunburn every time I go out. I got used to wearing one at the cable park so no reason not to wear one kiting.

[longwhitecloud]

Too right, having lived in the Gold Coast for the last couple of years the law for sure discourages exercise on bikes - it gets to like 38 degrees (over 100).

I sweat under the water with just boardies on - let alone with a helmet on too.

I am not anti helmets. I do believe in personal choice though. On a foil.... yup kickers and slider .... probably.

I like to asses risk further up the chain personally with more priority... on the flipside - i love a bit of calculated risk!

@ricki posting 12 links to bad accidents is hypocritical after putting down the open source database because you are worried about accident data causing access problems, but i like it...

Transparency is best.

[NHKitesurfer]

Nearly 100% upside wearing helmets and yesterday on the snow it really helped when I landed on my head a couple of times doing backrolls. Can't imagine what it would have felt like without it.

My only one oh sh*t moment wearing a helmet was when I crashed and my kite lines got caught on the back of my helmet where the goggle strap is held in place. It was a huge oh sh*t moment and good thing I knew what had happened after getting jerked by my head for a split second. Watch out for lines getting wrapped around your gopro mounts too on your helmet. Not good to be yanked and dragged by your head.

[RickI]

Kiters should be able to choose if they wear a good helmet for kiting on their own. It would be best if they did so after clearly considering things on an informed basis.

Good points about helmet camera mount tangles. I have thought about weaking the mounts to where they might break off more easily with a tangle. With a camera float they shouldn't be easily lost. I never thought about the risk with the goggle holder on a snow kiting helmet but thank you for bringing it up. You don't want to have your neck heavily strain by a tangle.

[RickI]

The data base was created with malignant intent to harm the sport of kiting, all be it in the Olympics. I would be ashamed to show my face around here after trying something like that, seriously. My intent has been in the opposite direction to improve kiting, sustainability and safety, it always has been going back to 2001.

Some history:

Question, is your concern about improving kiter safety in general or developing a basis for the removal of kiting as currently proposed as an Olympic event? I am not involved in the Olympic process myself. My passion deals with promoting safer, sustainable kiting in general coming from a time when there was a absence of information or much consideration of such matters. What is your motivation?

You seem to have strong opinions about it yourself however expressed in what seems like over 65 posts attacking kiting in the Olympics on safety grounds?

search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keyw ... whitecloud

I haven't gone through your whole list, but I want to give you a warning. Posting inaccurate accounts is going to cause problems.

I wanted to tell you that one of your fatalities, gave me an assisted landing two days ago. This is embarrassing on one level and totally discrediting of this effort on another. Please think this over. Back the day I would have had a lynch mob after me on here for approaching things in this way, sad to say, justifiably. You will notice the article you cite says nothing about a fatality.

Fatal,19/8/2008,USA,Florida,xx,35,Land,Huricane incident http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... storm.html

I deal with these problems on a regular basis at multiple levels and know what I am talking about. People looking for inflammatory information will enjoy your "database" to the harm of our sport. Please believe this. I have tried to counter such activities for years while putting out ideas to improve kiter safety at the same time. It isn't an easy thing to pull off.

I think a competently researched, assembled, maintained relational database of kiting accidents would be a good thing for the sport. Say something with a team of expert kiters/researchers/academics pulling the load instead of any one person such as myself. That is with varying levels of access to try to protect how the data will be used. With open access with poorly checked data, minimal facts and explanation, it will be a train wreck.

I started to create a relational database myself and more than once. Serious data limitations inherent in the database structure at the time (which hopefully you are realizing now), life and troll attacks among other reasons put me off the project. Why kill yourself with a pro bono project just to be liabled on here? I chose to write articles and posts about new ways of getting harmed when I discovered them with lots of recapping articles along the way given the repetitious nature of accidents in our sport.
.

https://www.kiteforum.com/viewtopic.php ... 5&start=10

[longwhitecloud]

I love kiting, been kiting for 16 years, have won national title (freestyle), do free lessons for some, have competed overseas, run free how to website/youtube channel - waterstart.tv, run dvnt kiteboarding - the first company in the world to manufacture kiteboarding in a snowboard construction/press, created the proactive open source accident database http://tinyurl.com/hp2mowr - although being open source much of the data is from contributors, have helped run a local wave and freestyle competition over the years, helped run nzs biggest kitesurf charity crossing for the kids hospital (that helped my kid) Not writing this to blow smoke up my ass, writing this because this is an open forum and it is all too easy for someone to write $hit about someone else like you just did.

As for our differences in opinion about olympic kiteboarding you say

"I would be ashamed to show my face around here after trying something like that, seriously."

WTF?!


Rick I - Has a private accident database no one else is allowed to see (Says because he is worried about access if someone sees it - never mind the fact that anyone can find out all this info using google). Posts up 12 linkable examples of accidents all the same in this thread - hypocritical . Does paid work for the courts in the USA based on this data - conflict of interest. Has some kind of problem with letting someone get on with what they want to do. Has a difference of opinion to me regarding olympic kiteboarding. Loved the idea so much that rather than comment on IKOs bull$hit safety report with his opinion (despite being the self appointed kiteboarding safety guru) to the international Olympic Comittee (via world sailing) , just remained silent the whole time. (once again another conflict of interest.