 Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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It presumably was a head injury, the article doesn't mention if they were wearing a helmet, just wondering...
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“A skier had left the Covagnes piste and hit a tree at high speed.“
At “high” speeds Im not sure a helmet does you much good?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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I think they’ve got the wrong piste - reading the article it says it was on a tight right bend - which there isn’t on Covagnes. I think it’s Starwars (Combe a Floret) as that has a “slow down” sign on a fairly sharp right turn just before the junction with the run that goes down to Ardent, and the trees there are pretty dense (and isn’t a great place to stop, if as the story says, he was trying to avoid a group who’d stopped).
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Oh dear. Very sad thing to happen. Probably going too fast to stop in the distance he could see. Probably not the fault of a group who'd stopped round a corner, not that that is very sensible. As @ster says, a helmet is probably not much help if you collide at speed with a tree.
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Ok so now we need to talk about what “at speed” means, and at what speed you think a helmet actually helps.
I’d have thought a helmet would at least reduce if not eliminate the chance of a serious head injury in a tree collision scenario, but yes there is of course a limit depending on the collision speed. I just wonder what was the main factor here, not wearing a helmet at all, or wearing one but going way too fast for it to provide the protection against a fatal collision.
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| Quote: |
so now we need to talk about what “at speed” means, and at what speed you think a helmet actually helps.
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No, I don't think we do.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| Pyramus wrote: |
Ok so now we need to talk about what “at speed” means, and at what speed you think a helmet actually helps.
I’d have thought a helmet would at least reduce if not eliminate the chance of a serious head injury in a tree collision scenario, but yes there is of course a limit depending on the collision speed. I just wonder what was the main factor here, not wearing a helmet at all, or wearing one but going way too fast for it to provide the protection against a fatal collision. |
If it's a normal ski (or cycling) helmet they are really specced to protect your head if it was dropped from six feet (i.e., falling down straight onto your head. That is really useful protection for most of the head strikes you are likely to get skiing but nothing like skiing into a tree at 30mph (for example). You'd need something more like a motorbike helmet to protect against that.
I'm not making an argument against ski helmets just being realistic about what they can do.
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Well, as the impact test is conducted at approx 12mph (5.42m/s) to pass EN1077 (the blunt force, not the penetration test) you can see how protective ski helmets really are. Given that we can easily reach 50mph+ on skis you can see that if you do impact a solid object at that kind of speed a ski helmet will provide barely any mitigation of the impact. The reason they appear to work at higher speeds is that the impact speed is much lower ... just because you're doing 50mph if you're falling onto the piste the impact speed with the piste is only the vertical component so your head is probably only doing something like 3-5m/s (9.8m/s2 acceleration from approx 1.6-2.0metres). Most people don't seem to appreciate the different between speed and velocity ... but it's really really important in such matters.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Pyramus wrote: |
Ok so now we need to talk about what “at speed” means, and at what speed you think a helmet actually helps.
I’d have thought a helmet would at least reduce if not eliminate the chance of a serious head injury in a tree collision scenario, but yes there is of course a limit depending on the collision speed. I just wonder what was the main factor here, not wearing a helmet at all, or wearing one but going way too fast for it to provide the protection against a fatal collision. |
I think the main factor was colliding with a tree.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Pyramus wrote: |
Ok so now we need to talk about what “at speed” means, and at what speed you think a helmet actually helps.
I’d have thought a helmet would at least reduce if not eliminate the chance of a serious head injury in a tree collision scenario, but yes there is of course a limit depending on the collision speed. I just wonder what was the main factor here, not wearing a helmet at all, or wearing one but going way too fast for it to provide the protection against a fatal collision. |
I think you vastly underestimate the effectiveness of a helmets and the rigidity of trees.
Cars can be cut in half with the loss of a bit of bark to a tree
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@Pyramus, not sure this is the thread for that discussion (or that it's particularly helpful anyway), especially as it's a detail we don't know.
Sad news, does seem like we see similar a few times each season but I suppose it's all part of the risk of skiing near trees. I'm not sure which piste it is but I know there are a few which narrow and have tight corners. Possibly a reminder to be mindful of where you stand if stopping on piste, especially to avoid narrow spots
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You know it makes sense.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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does not has to be something with the head. E.g. Marko Marko Grilc
"It was a simple ride on the Tiefenbach glacier in Sölden, at low speed, during a routine slope inspection, with no extreme maneuvers planned for the next day of filming either.
While practicing his profession and his beloved sport, he rolled over and hit his left side/chest area against a rock, which, according to the autopsy, resulted in trauma and an explosion of the aorta. He died instantly, without suffering and without pain. A helmet could not have saved him."
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Poster: A snowHead
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@turms2, fair enough but the OP article talks about "brain death" which points to a head injury.
@Blackblade, thanks for the info. 12mph is rather slow, makes you wonder why its only 12mph that is used for the impact test. Any idea?
Kinda scary that stuff like this can even still happen on a blue slope.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Blackblade wrote: |
| Well, as the impact test is conducted at approx 12mph (5.42m/s) to pass EN1077 (the blunt force, not the penetration test) you can see how protective ski helmets really are. Given that we can easily reach 50mph+ on skis you can see that if you do impact a solid object at that kind of speed a ski helmet will provide barely any mitigation of the impact. The reason they appear to work at higher speeds is that the impact speed is much lower ... just because you're doing 50mph if you're falling onto the piste the impact speed with the piste is only the vertical component so your head is probably only doing something like 3-5m/s (9.8m/s2 acceleration from approx 1.6-2.0metres). Most people don't seem to appreciate the different between speed and velocity ... but it's really really important in such matters. |
Yes this is a key point. You can fall a 50 mph pm a piste but the impact speed of your head will likely be MUCH lower
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@Pyramus, Do you have some information, not in the DM piece, that leads you to believe it was a head injury?
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| Pyramus wrote: |
| @turms2, fair enough but the OP article talks about "brain death" which points to a head injury. |
Have another read of the article - that refers to a different incident. That’s an earlier fatality in Sauze.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| adithorp wrote: |
| @Pyramus, Do you have some information, not in the DM piece, that leads you to believe it was a head injury? |
They’ve mixed up two incidents, both of which are in the article (as is the recent Swiss Wall accident)
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@andy from embsay, Oh sorry my mistake! Scan reading/multitasking...
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| Pyramus wrote: |
@turms2, fair enough but the OP article talks about "brain death" which points to a head injury.
@Blackblade, thanks for the info. 12mph is rather slow, makes you wonder why its only 12mph that is used for the impact test. Any idea?
Kinda scary that stuff like this can even still happen on a blue slope. |
didnt find something saying about dead injury etc. However it could be the reason of the death.
My point is that from a colision with a tree, does not have to be always the head injury the reason someones died.
But doesnt matter at all.. RIP
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Very sad news. Poor chap.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| Pyramus wrote: |
| It presumably was a head injury, the article doesn't mention if they were wearing a helmet, just wondering... |
RIP.
It says "violent collision". Helmet or no helmet makes absolutely no difference. Plus it is likely other major trauma (cardiac arrest mentioned) would be the cause of death.
Trees always win unfortunately. I quite like what some Austrian resorts do, where they create a 'lip' all down the side of a piste which is designed to reduce the speed of an out of control skier and stop them from coming into contact with trees. It seems to work. Whereas, when you ski in the states, where there is no 'lip', you always see little shrines on the trees by the piste - it's quite a popular way to check out over there.
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| Pyramus wrote: |
Kinda scary that stuff like this can even still happen on a blue slope. |
Grattalu above Tignes VC is a very easy blue slope, on which idiots can and do straight line it so they can tell their pals they hit 70mph on skitrax.
Back OT - such a shame for this poor guy and his family - RIP 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Origen wrote: |
| Quote: |
so now we need to talk about what “at speed” means, and at what speed you think a helmet actually helps.
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No, I don't think we do. |
+1
"I also presume it was a head injury" isn't particularly helpful. It could have been anything. I'm not very comfortable with all this speculative chat about what / how / why it happened. It's extremely sad and gut-wrenching for his family and friends - but can we please wait for the official announcement / investigation.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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@Avabrunch, if this accident occurred where I think it did it’s a steepish little drop down to a sharp right hander and the piste flattens out, but the hillside slopes down below it - so if you miss the bend it’s almost a ramp up into the (fairly dense) trees. Hit it out of control and you could fly off into the trees and as you say it wouldn’t really matter what hit first - hence a “slow down” sign before it.
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I can't recall hearing about the earlier Serre Chevalier fatality, was there a Snowheads thread?
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You know it makes sense.
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@Origen, @franga, +3
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| Pyramus wrote: |
I’d have thought a helmet would at least reduce if not eliminate the chance of a serious head injury in a tree collision scenario |
You'd have thought wrong, perhaps. There's a finite amount of reduction of impact force a helmet can give, some (e.g. ski racing, motorcycle) much more than others, but all of them will have a maximum speed, for any given head, where the reduction still leaves the remaining force higher than what is survivable.
So imagine that your ski helmet, tested to 12mph, will keep you uninjured from a direct impact at that speed. At 20mph it may allow you to survive a potentially fatal impact, e.g. if reduces the force by half (studies[1] show that this is achievable by motorcycle helmets at lower speeds than that, so that's much more than we could reasonable expect from a ski helmet at 12mph) equivalent to a 10mph non-helmeted impact. Great you're going to live. Elevate that to 50mph and even if the reduction were the same the resulting force will still be way above the survivable level.
Numbers somewhat made up, but I hope you get the point - there is a speed that will kill you, the helmet may increase that fatal speed, but only up to a given maximum somewhat less than twice the original speed. Anything above that and you're just as dead with your helmet as without.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6061106/bin/40846_2017_324_Fig7_HTML.jpg
from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6061106/
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Poster: A snowHead
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Pyramus wrote: |
@turms2, fair enough but the OP article talks about "brain death" which points to a head injury.
@Blackblade, thanks for the info. 12mph is rather slow, makes you wonder why its only 12mph that is used for the impact test. Any idea?
Kinda scary that stuff like this can even still happen on a blue slope. |
Generall motorcycle helmet certifications are for an impact test to ~16-17mph...
There is a relatively low limit to what we can actually provide protection against as the only way to reduce injuries is to spread the impact over time/distance (i.e. crumple zones) which takes space - there are practical limits to how thick we can make a helmet, especially without causing other issues (replacing head injuries with neck/spinal injuries...)
(see the huge issue with people failing to grasp the valid argument for road cycling pro choice wrt wearing helmets - helmets are basically useless for collisions with cars and for an average road cyclist impacts within a helmets design are extraordinarily rare... Literally walking results in more head injuries than road cycling. Of course skiing is comparable to mountain biking where falls are a LOT more common and more likely to fall within the protection a helmet offers...)
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| qwerty360 wrote: |
see the huge issue with people failing to grasp the valid argument for road cycling pro choice wrt wearing helmets - helmets are basically useless for collisions with cars and for an average road cyclist impacts within a helmets design are extraordinarily rare... Literally walking results in more head injuries than road cycling. Of course skiing is comparable to mountain biking where falls are a LOT more common and more likely to fall within the protection a helmet offers... |
The irony is that serious DH mountain bikers, like Ski Racers, would never be happy with the (still) crappy helmets that the general public seems these days to regard as the norm.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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| valais2 wrote: |
| It happens every year at many different ski areas. If you hit the tree slowly or only give it a glancing blow you may avoid injury. A hard hit can cause serious injury or death. A few years ago I was skiing at Breckenridge during Christmas vacation with my family. I came to a Y in the trail and saw a pair of skis but no skier. When I skied down to them, I looked back up hill and saw a person lying in the trees. I then told my wife (a nurse) to check him and she found that he was dead so we called 911 and the ski patrol, who retrieved the body. Skiing in trees is dangerous. |
Years ago when I used to race DH MTB, I was practicing lines at Fort William and had an incident that shook me up (and still to this day gets my pulse racing thinking about it). I was riding the catwalks in the lower marshland a few hundred metres from the finish and was probably doing ~35-40mph, the goal was to keep speed up and cut the corners as close as possible.
On one run I cut it too close and I dropped off the inside of a corner and my front wheel hit one of the piles holding up the catwalk, this catapulted me forwards and I landed on the edge of the catwalk right next to another pile. If I had been propelled 30cm to the right I would have gone head first into that pile (basically a tree) and my neck would have been pulverised (I imagine the helmet would have broken apart too).
I would have been instantly dead, no question. As it was I was badly injured from landing on the catwalk, took me weeks to recover and longer to get my confidence back - in fact I don't think I ever had the same fearlessness again.
As they say, it's not the falling that kills you, it's the stopping!
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@Thomasski, ...nasty...and that whump, smack, crunch of A Big One is really not nice...thanks for the description...not surprised your confidence took a knock. It takes me months to get back up to speed after an 'off' on the bike these days...
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What a shame, heavy price to pay for your hobby.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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@Thomasski, ...apologies should also have mentioned ‘respect’ for you riding at competition level - we ride enduro and DH and even though we’re considered to be quick we remain in awe of the speeds which competition riders attain. The Grom clocked 66 kph on the big berms at Cry D’er ... the pros clock 80 ... gulp
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| valais2 wrote: |
| @Thomasski, ...apologies should also have mentioned ‘respect’ for you riding at competition level - we ride enduro and DH and even though we’re considered to be quick we remain in awe of the speeds which competition riders attain. The Grom clocked 66 kph on the big berms at Cry D’er ... the pros clock 80 ... gulp |
Sounds like mini-valais2 could have fun in competition! There are many levels and it's a great community!
I was only ever 'average' on a first rung level (NPS) - I had some skills but not the full package - never as good as the proper UCI riders; still I enjoyed myself! There's a surprising jump in the amount of skill between a good rider, a GOOD rider, and a great rider; I didn't have the time or the competitiveness to achieve anything of note! I'm in awe of the WC riders, so effortless, and inspired lines!
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