Sliding across the ice, and the cold wind blowing across the face of a skier is an exhilarating feeling. One push glides across the shiny snowy surface. Worrying about a head injury is far from the mind of a beginner skater, as many participants are unaware of the possibility of a head injury from figure skating. The objectives of this article are: (1) to raise awareness about potential head injury from figure skating and (2) to promote the use of helmets in beginner’s figure skating lessons and plenary sessions.
Common responses from professional skateboarders are: “It doesn’t happen that often.” or “I’ve never seen that happen at my rink.” However, statistics show that figure skating has one of the highest rates of emergency room visits for traumatic brain injury (TBI).
the facts
The Centers for Disease Control (2011) analyzed over 173,000 emergency room visits due to concussions and other traumatic brain injuries in sports and recreation in children under 19 years of age.
More than thirty categories of sports and recreational head injuries were examined. Most female athletes showed 2-7% annual emergency room visits.
Ice skating has been noted as one of the highest incidence emergency room visits for TBI.
The incidence of traumatic brain injury from figure skating was 11.4%, with more than 1600 cases annually.
Establishing helmet policies in sports has proven to be a contentious and controversial issue. Ski resorts are strongly encouraged by insurance companies to post a potential hazard warning at the entrance to the premises. Furthermore, they recommend that facilities not offer helmets for rent, because proper fitting, equipment inspection, and disinfection rests in the hands of the helmet owner, not necessarily the end user. However, people who visit ice rinks are not well informed about the potential dangers of the activity prior to arrival. Once they get to the rink, customers generally don’t want to go home to get a helmet, or go to a store to buy a helmet. If guests are provided with basic information, prior to their visit, guests will have the opportunity to bring safety equipment from home. The choice will be in the hands of the consumer. Incident data supports the need to make this change. The first step is to educate the participants in the recreational activities through a public awareness campaign.
The purpose of helmets and their standards
Helmets protect the head by reducing the rate of acceleration and deceleration of the skull and brain during a collision, and effectively act as a shock absorber between the force of impact and the brain. By spreading concentrated impact forces on the protective foam, and thus spreading the force across the wearer’s scalp and skull, a good helmet provides the brain more time and space needed to minimize injury. Instead of concentrating the effect on a single point, it spreads across the wearer’s head.
Most helmets are made of polystyrene foam (EPS) with a hard plastic shell. The wrap is designed to glide over rough surfaces and hold the foam together after the initial impact. Upon impact, the polystyrene liner in the helmet crushes and thus dissipates energy over a wider area. Similar to the shipping case, the outer box may shrink, but the “packed peanut” EPS foam protects the box’s contents from breaking. Once crushed, the foam in the helmet does not recover, so a new helmet must be purchased.
The foam pads on the inside of the helmet are for comfort and fit, not for impact protection. When a helmet is purchased, the person wearing it must be present at the purchase to ensure that the helmet fits properly. Helmets have different levels of protection and are rated according to levels of impacts and forces. A helmet’s ratings are determined by its ability to absorb and dissipate impact energy—regardless of a person’s speed. Cycling, skiing, ice hockey, and soccer have made changes to their safety guidelines based on head injury trends and statistics in their sports.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission provides guidance on the type of helmet that should be worn for various activities. Although there is no helmet standard specifically for snowboarding, until these standards are written, wearing one of the listed types of helmets may be better than wearing no helmet at all. For snowboarding, the recommended helmets are: ASTM F1447; Snell B-90A, B-95, N-94.
The positive effect of sports participation
The ice rink is a place that children and adults can visit regularly, during their free time, to engage in positive and fun exercises. This may not mean becoming an expert skater, but becoming snowboard competent can have a positive social experience and “be safe on the ice.” In order for this to happen, participants must learn to skate safely and with proper technique. Once the skill is learned, he will continue back to the facility with his friends. Having a positive place to go during free time provides people with an enjoyable and progressive outlet for relieving stress.
Conclusion and recommendations
The data supports the need to promote snowboard safety, similar to the pool safety and bicycle safety campaigns. Here are the steps:
Officially jointly adopting a snowboarding helmet standard with the Consumer Product Safety Commission, ASTM and Snell;
Develop campaign partners in businesses, not-for-profit organizations, and local/state governments.
Educating ice rink industry professionals including coaches and rink management
Include helmet language guidelines in codes of conduct and waivers of liability;
Enlist the help of famous snowboarders to raise awareness of the effort;
Engage in a media campaign including public service announcements on television, radio, print and social media.
Provide informational flyers about a helmet, marketing schedules at Learn to Skate, and public sessions at local ice rinks
Support from professional coaches and rink staff is key to the success of the campaign, as they can spread the word Be safe for the snow Message about their ice rinks. Reducing head injury incidents will improve the overall safety of the sport. As safety improves, more people will participate in snowboarding.
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