Opinion: Actress’ death sparks misplaced call for helmets

ANCHORAGE, Alaska—The only given in life is that we will die.

There is no way around it, though the tragic death of actress Natasha Richardson seems to have fueled the do-gooder passions of those who somehow believe otherwise.

Richardson fell on a ski slope in Canada on March 16. The fall caused a blood vessel to burst in her brain. She did not know it. Her life might have been saved by speedy medical intervention when she later complained of a headache, but that didn’t happen and she died.

Now, those who think we live forever are engaged in what some newspapers headline as a “debate over ski helmets.” And the Canadians are talking about making helmets mandatory on slopes in some or all provinces.

As the discussion spirals into that never-never land where everyone is supposed to be protected from everything all the time, one fundamental question remains badly overlooked:

If helmets are a safety necessity, when exactly should people put them on?

All the medical authorities seem to agree that in this case Richardson could just as easily have fallen, hit her head and died from a slip in the ski area parking lot as from her minor tumble on the slopes. As neurologist Neil Martin of the UCLA Medical Center noted in an interview with the BBC, anytime you fall from a standing position and land on your head, your brain experiences a drop of nearly 6 feet.

“It’s profoundly unusual for a minor head injury as was described to result in a life threatening medical crisis,” Martin added, but it can happen.

The Centers for Disease Control report 16,000 to 17,000 people die in this country each year from brain injuries related to slips, trips and falls. Some of these people would no doubt be saved if we all wore helmets all of the time.

Maybe the pertinent question to be asked about helmets doesn’t concern when people should be required to put them on, but when people should be allowed to take them off.

Along with slips, trips and falls, a significant number of brain injuries resulting in death happen in motor vehicle accidents.

If you wear the helmet to protect yourself on the bunny hill and to protect yourself when walking across the slippery parking lot, why wouldn’t you wear the helmet in the car in case of an accident on the way to the ski area?

Professional race car drivers always wear helmets, and they’re tightly strapped into a steel cage that provides them with a lot more protection than is provided by your average automobile. It only seems sensible to follow their lead and wear a helmet.

So where do we finally take the helmet off? In bed maybe?

This discussion obviously, at some point, becomes absurd unless you actually, wholeheartedly embrace that oft-repeated phrase “if it saves even one life . . . ” By that standard, there is almost nothing that can’t be advocated or mandated in the name of safety. Not that there’s anything wrong with safety per se.

Consider this: Despite the fact ski helmet usage has been steadily climbing for years, despite the fact that 43 percent of all skiers are now reported to be wearing helmets, the annual death rate on the slopes hasn’t changed. Just as many people are dying now as died in the days when all anyone ever wore was a stocking hat.

All that has changed is that some companies are making money pushing helmets, some ski areas are making money renting helmets and some skiers are comforted by the thought the fiberglass they’ve strapped on their head might help save their life even if, statistically, their chances of dying on the slope haven’t changed a bit.

Personally, I’ve avoided the ski-helmet bandwagon. I don’t own a helmet and probably won’t buy one. But when I’m on the slopes now, I do worry a lot about being hit by the helmeted head of some out-of-control bozo who thinks he can throw caution to the wind because his head is protected by a brain bucket.

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