Twelve-year-old Bradley Sakiewicz of West Dundee is one of the best snowboarders in his age group in the country–not bad for an Illinois flatlander–but he doesn’t hit the slopes without his Burton/RED helmet.
“Sometimes I fall right on my head,” he said.
Bradley started to wear a helmet when he began to get competitive about his sport.
“Once I started doing jumps, it was dangerous without a helmet,” said Bradley, who placed fifth in the halfpipe in his age group last year at the U.S.A. Snowboard Association nationals.
In choosing safety, Bradley fits the conclusions of researchers from the University of Vermont College of Medicine and the Vermont Children’s Hospital at Fletcher Allen Health Care, who found that younger skiers and snowboarders are more apt to wear a helmet than their older counterparts. In the first year of what may end up being a four-year study, researchers observed the headgear habits of more than 10,000 winter-sports enthusiasts at four Vermont resorts.
Study leader Robert Williams, a pediatrician and anesthesiologist, said two-thirds of skiers and snowboarders under 18 wore helmets, compared with one-third of winter athletes over 18. Williams is especially concerned about young adults in their late teens and 20s.
“There’s a lot of high-risk kids 18 and older,” he said “As a group of people, they’re more accident-prone.”
A 1999 report by the Consumer Product Safety Commission said helmet use could prevent 10 deaths and 7,700 head injuries from skiing and snowboarding each year.
Williams, a skier and snowboarder who is on the ski patrol at the Smugglers’ Notch Resort in Vermont, said he thinks young adults have seen helmets as “nerdy” in the past but hopes the headgear may grow to be just as welcome among winter-sports participants as it is among serious bicyclists.
“You never see a mountain biker without a helmet; it’s just accepted,” Williams said. “We want to make wearing a helmet a cool thing.”
That mirrors the philosophy of Giro, one of the top two manufacturers of skiing and snowboarding helmets. Giro, which also makes cycling and auto-racing helmets, entered the ski and snowboard field about 10 years ago shortly before the deaths of celebrities Michael Kennedy and Sonny Bono provided a wakeup call about winter-sports risks. Although two of the firm’s helmets topped the list in a recent issue of Consumer Reports, Giro marketing director Eric Richter said safety isn’t the only thing that has driven the firm’s rise.
“We’re a fashion-driven brand,” he said. “We look at styling as a way to get kids into helmets. If it looks cool and feels good, they’ll wear it. If it doesn’t, they won’t.”
This winter, Raging Buffalo owner Keith Duck made helmets mandatory at his Algonquin park, which he describes as “Chuck E. Cheese on snow” because of the growing volume of preteen snowboarders.
“We required the helmets for riding any rails in the past,” he said of the park, the sole snowboard-only park in the region. “But because of the nature of the jumps and the kids pushing themselves to do tricks they see in videos, we decided we would require them [all the time].”
Grand Geneva Resort in Lake Geneva, Wis., doesn’t require helmets for its skiers and snowboarders, but ski area director Hans Hauschild said that only about 30 to 40 percent of his guests choose head protection.
Hauschild said under-18 athletes might be more safety-conscious in part because they’re used to wearing helmets while skateboarding or bicycling. But he also said earlier winter-sports helmets were heavier and tougher to see or hear out of.
“Some people have a negative attitude toward the helmet,” Hauschild said. “We tell them, `Just try it out.’ It’s light and it keeps your head warm.”
Both Raging Buffalo and Grand Geneva have chosen Boeri, Giro’s main competitor, as their supplier for rental helmets. And although Boeri President Jeff Favreby is gung-ho about selling more helmets, he says mandating the protective gear would hurt winter sports.
“In a time when the ski and snowboard industry is having a difficult time retaining customers,” he said, “any perception that `Boy, this must really be dangerous if you have to a wear a helmet,’ is not a good message to send.”
Researcher Williams said helmets won’t prevent all head injuries–for one thing, speed is a factor–but added that they are more necessary now than ever as resorts have changed to accommodate guests seeking extreme adventure.
“People like to ski out of bounds and on gladed trails through the trees,” he said. “[The resorts] have added halfpipes and terrain parks for people wanting to do jumps. . . . The potential for mischief is much higher.”
