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Originally Posted by AGDee
I'm not sure about the insurance part either. I do know that after Katrina my flood insurance (in Michigan) went up $200 a year, so even if they say it shouldn't affect my rates if I don't ride a motorcycle, I'm wary. I just don't trust insurance companies  |
We've had the helmit laws down here in Australia for years, and I dare say that they have saved countless lives, even if things are costly with insurance.
This doesn't include motorbikes but it does include helmits, so what the hell....
I do a lot of work with horses, both in competition riding and for pure pleasure. I also do a lot of Instructing of kids now that I've got my official Instructors Certificate. About 5 years ago I was at the Australian High School's Equestrian Championships (Otherwise known as the North West Equestrian Expo) at a town called Coonabarabran in northern New South Wales. The event goes for about 4 days every year in June and encompasses everything from Eventing to flat-riding, rodeo events (minus the bucking events or roping), 1-day eventing, showjumping and dressage. All in all, theres normally upwards of 600 riders at the event each year.
Anyway, there was this girl out there in the age group below me that was on a horse that was most definately too much for a developing rider like her to handle, and it was being a danger both to her and the other riders around her. After being kicked at for no reason at all, a number of us complained to the teacher that was supervising her and got her to take the horse back up to her school's stables. Anyway instead of doing that, the girl took her horse up to one of the warm-up arenas where she continued to ride. Anyway during this time her horse spooked at something and bolted on her, resulting on her totally loosing control and leaning 3/4 out of the way of the saddle to her right hand side. Screaming at the top of her lungs, her horse continued to bolt back down towards the Marshelling Yard, where I still was waiting in in order to go to my next event. When we saw her coming, everyone thought that the safest way to handle the situation would be to let the horse run into the marsheling yard and to catch it there instead of her potentially hitting a vehicle. Anyway, the marshelling yard in question was made out of wood from Ironbark trees, which as their name suggests is one extremely tough hardwood. Now the gatepost in question was about a foot in radius and had a gate-latch on the outer part of it. She hit the gatepost and latch chest, neck and head on, totally flailing her chest, puncturing her right lung, fracturing her skull and literally causing massive internal injuries in everything from her abdomenin upwards. When I saw the thing happen I knew that her injuries were well beyond my knowledge of Emergency medicine (compulsory aspect of my Instructors Certificate and Surf Lifesaving certificate) and knew that her only chance was if I got the Paramedics to her within the next minute, while my Dad tried to make sure that she didn't choke on her own blood in the meantime and kept a ton of people who were screaming and trying to touch her away from her. Screaming at the top of my lungs for the Paramedics, I jumped my horse into the main show arena where the closest Paramedic was. It was lucky that he was only a hundred metres away and not over the other side of the showground, otherwise she would of been dead.
After having every paramedic on the ground plus an off-duty Medivac Helicopter paramedic work on her for close to an hour, they got her ready to move to the local hospital where they had all of that small town's five doctors working on her. They had to restart her heart 3 times on the way to the hospital and twice at the hospital, and they also had to call up the large NRMA Medivac helicopter from the Sydney region, which also picked up the head Neurosurgeon from John Hunter Hospital (one of the biggest hospitals in Australia). She was in a coma for just over 6 months and still requires care.
Anyway after the accident, quite understandably all of the paramedics who worked on her were an absolute mess. One of them still had the helmit with him, as it was more of a hinderence to the people that were working on her than a help due to its state. The helmit, taking the brunt of the impact was nearly completely split in two, though it most likely saved her life. The paramedic that I talked to said that in his 25 years in the ambulance service that it was the worst accident of any sort that he'd ever had to attend.
I still have nightmares from seeing that accident.
If a helmit can save a person's life from an accident like that on a horse though, imagine how many lives could be saved if people wore helmits all the time on bikes in the US.....