And the rest of us can just look at the pictures.

Yeah, I'll start it.

Glad you're OK.

I live in PA, where you can ride a motorcycle without a helmet so seeing a cyclist now and then without a helmet is nothing.

Hey, that's my helmet! Good to see it works.

I had a Furio just like that last year also. After I was hit from behind by a pick-up truck and layed in the hospital for 3 days I took the time to look over my helmet. It was cracked front to back and side to side at the temple area. It also had a pretty deep puncture type wound towards the top and to one side.

I know that without that helmet, that puncture would have been to my skull and I may or may not be back on the bike again as I am. Won't see me without a helmet riding my bike...to each their own.

Gettin scalped ain't fun either!

Simply curious and I don't mean anything by it: are you a surgeon, and if so, what type?

+1 on the topic. My helmet took the brunt of the head impact in a crash last fall, doing about 25MPH, and I had no more than abrasions on my face. If I had had a crack in my head like the helmet showed, I would not be hear at all.
Get well and back in the sassle soon.

Glad you're ok.

Could you describe how it happened? Endo? Low side/high side? Run off and hit something?

So what would be the result if the helmet didn't work? I bet there are proportionally a lot fewer people who post those results.

for obvious reasons. IMO a helmet "doesnt work" in a serious high speed crash - only a motorcycle helmet would help in those, and even then, the protection is limited. A low speed bump is what they are designed for. I figure its a good thing anytime energy is being absorbed that was going to your skull.

Helmets work -- work to create brain injury that is. Picture this: you're traveling downhill at about 30-mph through an "S-curve"... through some series of irrelevant events, you find yourself falling over. Your helmeted head hits the ground and immediately upon contact the soft foam grabs onto the rough asphalt and applies a mighty torsion, wrenching your brain and causing you to pass out... whereas, an unhelmeted head would have bounced and slid with far less of the damaging torsion to the brain...


(PS -- this is a devil's advocate point of view; I do personally wear a helmet, but I don't think the benefits of helmet use have been proven, especially not in this thread...)

My SO had a crash at 12mph on flat ground last summer. On a night ride a huge raccoon ran out of a ditch and knocked the bike right out from underneath him. He never saw it. He went straight down on his side and was out cold for several minutes. He had a grade 3 concussion and a minor brain hemmorhage (sp?). He had a Giro helmet. The foam pretty much shattered. He replaced the helmet with a Specialized brand, as they are SNELL approved (Bell/Giro is not) and seems more robust than the Giro.

Glad you're okay. GL getting back on. It might take a couple days to feel 100% but it will come.

But really, helmets are for people who want to be able to feed themselves after a crash.

But what would be the actual result for a helmet that didn't work? Suppose it was as brittle as crystal and exploded at a very tiny contact, or it was made of cardboard and simply got torn up without offering any protection.

Either way you are left with a damaged helmet and a beat up rider that survived the accident, which is the same result you get with a helmet that does work. (Obviously if you didn't survive the accident you aren't around to post about it). If the rider doesn't sustain head injuries, then that can be attributed to the damaged helmet. If the rider does sustain some head injuries, then their mitigation can be attributed to the helmet with the alternative surely being death.

So my point is that posting about a helmet that worked in an accident is kind of redundant, because it is the only possible result, which is great because it means that helmets will always work.

OP, great story! Glad you're OK and I'm surprised that the bike did not get any damage.

The "soft foam grabing into asphalt" story is just load of bull. 1st, most helmets have a layer of clean plastic on the outside and 2nd an unhelmeted head would grab the asphalt the same way and bounce less, since the layer of skin and connective tissue on the skull is just so thin in comparison to the foam of a helmet. In case your head would "bounce" back from the street you would anyway get a serious brain trauma.

Glad it protected your melon. As far as helmets working or not, they work with basic physics principles. They are designed to take an impact load and distribute the force vector in many different directions, thus dissipating the energy and at the same time redirecting the energy.

Helmets can fail for different reasons as well: They are only so good at dealing with secondary and tertiary impacts. The impact can simply overwhelm the helmet's ability to dissipate and redirect the force. The point of impact is so narrow that it slices or punctures though the helmet (or air holes).

They can also fail because the foam inside has begun to break down and it will crush too quickly. Another issue with age that affects secondary impacts is when the adhesive that holds the shell to the foam breaks down, thus hurting the helmet's ability to hold together after the first impact.

It's like saying that wearing a cup is bull because getting whacked in the nuts isn't going to kill you.

lol, great post.

With all of the internet diagnosis going on here, I will be sure to report to the 41 as soon as I feel any ailment settling in. Go ask your doctor if one needs to be knocked cold to get a concussion.

Sounds to me like the OP had the typical battery of tests run for this type of trauma and was informed by his doc that there was no concussion.

Seriously

wait, what, you're supposed to wear a cup, too...?

Uh yeah, doesn't everyone?

If the helmet didnt work, you would have brain injury or death. The job of a helmet is to absorb energy. I know you cant say for sure that a bike helmet saved someone. I do think its pretty safe to assume that a bike helmet will absorb some of the impact. Does it absorb enough to save you from a brain injury every time? I doubt it, but I think its fairly safe to assume that if something absorbs impact that there is a certain range of impact where a helmet could make a difference. We can look at studies all day, but if you knew your head was about to hit the pavement and you had the option to put on a bike helmet, wouldnt you do it? Or would you say, "studies haven't shown conclusively any benefit to a helmet, I'll just hit it with my bare head and take my chances".

If I knew I was going to slip in the shower, and I had the option to put on a bike helmet, I'd do it. So...

Welcome to the "saved by a helmet" club. There's a lot of us.

That same argument could be made with the word pillow or cheese or pretty much any object in place of helmet. If you knew your head was about to hit the pavement and you had the option to tape a 1 kilo brick of mozzarella to your head, wouldn't you do it? Or would you say, "studies haven't shown conclusively any benefit to cheese, I'll just hit it with my bare head and take my chances".

I know I would choose cheese. But this is getting off topic so I won't follow that line of logic too far. We already know that helmets will work, so there is no point in strapping cheese to our heads.