The great helmet debate evolves

Anton Berlin

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Mar 15, 2010, 9:41:08 AM3/15/10

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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CALIFORNIA_SAFER_SLOPES?SITE=KMIZTV&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

ALPINE MEADOWS, Calif. (AP) -- On a ridge near the 8,600-foot summit
of Alpine Meadows ski resort, 17-year-old snowboarder Lucas Fuller
scopes out the many chutes and bowls that radiate out from Ward Peak.

It's a perfect powder day, with clear skies and fresh snow delivered
to the Lake Tahoe area the day before. The teenager from Reno, Nev.,
likes the resort because it has numerous ungroomed, expert-level
slopes that approximate the back-country.

For this run, the teenager from Reno, Nev., is looking for a route
that will provide cliffs and bumps so he can catch some air. Despite
warning signs at the base of the lift, Fuller is not wearing a helmet.

"I stopped wearing a helmet a long time ago, and it just feels
better," he says. "I've been riding for a long time, and I'm pretty
confident."

But if some California lawmakers have their way, the decision to wear
a helmet will no longer be a personal choice.

Two bills introduced by Democratic lawmakers from Northern California
would require minors to wear a helmet while skiing or snowboarding.
One of them also would extend to resort operations, requiring
extensive injury reporting, sign posting and safety planning.

If the bills pass and are signed into law, they would give California
the nation's most restrictive helmet laws for skiers and snowboarders
and the most stringent requirements for ski resorts.

Lawmakers in New York and New Jersey also are pushing mandates for ski
helmets. One of six New York bills, and the only one to advance out of
committee, would require skiers under 15 to wear a helmet. A New
Jersey bill, if passed would require helmets for skiers and
snowboarders under 14.

Quebec lawmakers considered requiring helmet use after actress Natasha
Richardson died after a fall in 2009, but no legislation was
introduced.

Even without legislative action, the use of helmets has gained in
popularity. A survey by the National Ski Areas Association found that
48 percent of all skiers and snowboarders wore helmets during the
2007-08 season.

One of the California bills, by Democratic state Sen. Leland Yee of
San Francisco, would require all skiers and snowboarders under age 18
to wear helmets. It would place the enforcement burden on parents, who
would face a fine of up to $25 if their children didn't comply.

A bill by Democratic state Assemblyman Dave Jones of Sacramento is
more far-reaching.

It has a similar helmet mandate for minors but would require ski
resorts, not parents, to enforce it. The Jones bill also would force
all California ski resorts to report every injury and fatality on the
slopes, coordinate with other resorts to adopt standardized safety
signs and equipment, prepare annual safety plans and make all that
information available to the public.

Such requirements are "extreme and unnecessary," said Geraldine Link,
director of public policy for the National Ski Areas Association.

"Not only are no other resorts in other ski states subject to these
kind of requirements, no other recreational activity is subject to
this kind of record-keeping," she said.

Link said her group, which is based in Colorado, would support the
Senate bill dealing solely with helmets if it's made clear that the
resorts don't have to enforce it.

Blaise Carrig, co-president of the mountain division for Colorado-
based Vail Resorts, agreed.

"If you're going to have legislation, at least have it be the right
legislation," he said.

Vail Resorts, which operates Heavenly on the California-Nevada border
and several ski areas in Colorado, has tried to encourage youngsters
to wear helmets by setting an example: All employees are required to
wear them while skiing or snowboarding.

In 2005, the British Medical Journal reported that wearing a helmet
reduced the risk of head injuries among skiers and snowboarders by 29
percent.

All the head trauma cases from Lake Tahoe-area resorts are sent to
Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno. On average, the hospital
admits one head injury patient from the slopes a day during ski
season.

Dr. John Swanson, an emergency physician at the hospital, said that
without helmets, "Their brain suffers more trauma, and they are more
likely to have slower recovery time and permanent brain damage."

Despite evidence that wearing helmets reduces the risk of severe
injury, Jones said many children and teenagers will not ask for them
on their own. He said it was not easy persuading his own children to
wear helmets.

"I think for many parents who have the fight with their kids, which
some of us have had, it's actually not a bad thing to be able to say,
'Look, you know what? Not only is this the right thing to do and not
only would I insist that you do it, but it's also a legal
requirement,'" he said.

California already has a law requiring minors to wear a helmet while
riding a bicycle.

In expanding his bill to include wide-ranging regulations for resorts,
Jones worked closely with Dan Gregorie, whose daughter died at Alpine
Meadows in 2006, even though she was wearing a helmet.

Jessica Gregorie fell while hiking to an expert slope. She slid
roughly 100 yards down the side of a mountain. Alpine said the woman,
who was 24, was outside its boundaries.

After his daughter's death, Dan Gregorie said he asked for additional
information about the resort's injury statistics and safety plans but
hit a wall.

"It became very clear to me as I began to look at it that the industry
has no standards or practices that they share with each other or that
they advocate within the industry," said Gregorie.

The majority of ski resorts in California operate on U.S. Forest
Service land and are required to report fatalities to that agency. The
Forest Service did not respond to a request for more information about
injury reporting and safety plans.

The National Ski Areas Association compiles information on a national
level but does not make it available by individual resort. Its most
recent report, for the 2008-09 season, shows 39 deaths nationwide.

Those who work the slopes say there is no way for resorts to
accurately track injuries. Ski patrol members are trained to deliver
quick, outdoor emergency care but are not emergency medical
technicians.

"Our purpose is to stabilize people," said Stewart Foreman, a lawyer
and volunteer member of the Alpine Meadows ski patrol. "In that
process, actually diagnosing a medical condition doesn't happen."

Federal privacy laws prevent ski resort employees from following a
patient's progress at the hospital.

Jones' office amended his bill to remove the requirement that the
injury and death information be retained in a state database because
the cost is too high. Instead, resorts would collect the information
and make it available to anyone who requests it.

Even with such alterations to the bills, ski industry officials said
they were wary of any attempt to impose a lengthy list of rules and
regulations, in part because skiers and snowboarders accept a certain
amount of risk when they decide to head down a mountain.

"This is a sport. We're not Disneyland," said Bob Roberts, executive
director of the California Ski Industry Association. "When you're
above 7,000 feet in the winter in the Sierra, you're in a very
different kind of environment."

Revtom

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Mar 15, 2010, 10:06:17 AM3/15/10

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Not really much of a debate. In the event of a death due to head
injury of a non-helmet wearer, especially of a minor, liability is
still pretty limited, absent glaring negligence on the part of the
resort/ski/snowboard hill operator. An adult wage earner, though, will
have a family looking to turn someone into a loving, legally-bound
provider.

The thing to be concerned about is paralysis and/or brain damage. Few
families can take the financial impact of care for someone who may
live decades past the injury. I would venture to guess that very few
people read the waivers on lift tickets. In the current legal and
judicial environment, a decision to the benefit of a plaintiff is
unlikely to survive any appeal. There is no way to legislate kids into
understanding their fragility or mortality. Punishing parents for
letting kids out the house without proper safety gear is just as
impossible.

People could invoke the Darwin effect; social anti-engineering by
default. Let the dipsh*ts kill themselves off, or remove themselves,
via injury, from the breeding population. Look what it did for NASCAR.
Just tell the kids, "When you crash and crack open your snotty little
skull, don't run home crying to me."