Mounted search and rescue

["IRVIN LICHTENSTEIN" <ilichten1@verizon.net>]

If you fall while wearing a helmet there are at least two things you need to
do: 
First, make sure the helmet goes to the hospital with you (or the patient if
not you).  This lets the trauma doctor see if you hit your head, where you
hit and how hard you hit. In many cases the scuffing or skid marks on the
shell and the crush pattern in the foam can let them concentrate their exam
on the most likely area to be damaged.  The local trauma center (SE PA) has
both a multi-slice (at least 64) reconfigurable and reconstituting image CT 
And a similar MRI just off the trauma bay but you have to stay alive long
enough for the shot to be taken and the radiologist to read it.  Having a
physical record of the impact is important.  Also, if it is a full head
helmet where head movement is required to remove it, leave it on unless
there is obvious bleeding that needs to be controlled.  

Second, after you get discharged from the hospital you put the helmet on a
stand somewhere with a little plaque that says, " On date this helmet saved
me from brain injury." And then you look at it everytime someone says, "you
don't need to wear a helmet........" and put on your new one. 

Helmets with damaged shells or foam GET REPLACED.  And a helmet is not a
helmet if the harness is not fastened. I have retired three so far in the
last 16 years.  Some were really beat up with cracked shells or crushed
foam. I may not be sane, but I am not brain damaged. 

Irv Lichtenstein