Brandy(whyoualwaysgottashowmeup), my best friend/roommate, fractured her skull yesterday snowboarding at Timberline. She aired over a small roller that was concealing a patch of rocks, and proceeded to pinball through a couple of boulders with her head. She is okay, but she shouldn't be. She should be dead. She wasn't wearing her helmet, and the spot she hit was a flat spot on the rock. She tumbled at exactly the right speed and angle to avoid much greater damage. She broke a finger and jammed another, and has a small lump of blood under her skull above her right ear that may need to be removed. Fun stuff, huh?! I am taking my RED helmet that I haven't been wearing because it doesn't fit right and makes my head look huge in to the shop today and trading it in for one that fits. I don't often wear a helmet, for a few reasons, but none of the reasons for which I haven't been wearing one are as good as this reason TO wear one... She should be dead. She is not. Her helmet was at home. Please, people, snowboarding is a dangerous activity, we go really fast, in trees, near rocks, on ice. The odds are already against us. Let's give ourselves at least one more advantage... A camper died on Mt. Hood while I was coaching a couple of years ago after tumbling head-first into the rocks... Another fractured his skull and tore up vertebrae on his back in our park after landing switch off a large jump and tumbling blindly into the rocks. No helmet. It's not worth dying just because you don't like how it looks. There are a ton of options in helmets, you can find one that fits well and feels good, I promise! I know that many of us have been skateboarding for a long time without helmets, and concrete is indeed harder than snow. However, even when schralping full-on in the biggest bowl, we aren't going anywhere near as fast as we almost always do on our snowboards. And there aren't many unmarked and invisible obstacles anywhere we normally skate. Helmets are a good idea!! Thanks for letting me rant, I hope some of you take this seriously and consider getting a bucket to cover and protect your brains and their fragile cases!

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Published by followtheflame: 2:00 AM
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