ASRA - Australian Skateboard Racing Association

Heres an extract from an article in the newspaper today:

"Neurosurgeons removed and froze both sides of a man's head to save his life after he shattered his skull in more than 10 places after a longboarding accident.

Kyle Johnson's brain swelled uncontrollably after an accident on a longboard two months ago.

Dr Blake Welling, of McKay-Dee Hospital in Ogden, Utah, performed the risky surgery. "It's something that neurosurgeosn do as a last-ditch effort," Welling said.

Welling and his team removed 25-year-old Johnson's fractured skull, put it back together with micro-screws and plates and then put it in the freezer.

Johnson was placed in a drug-induced coma for about three weeks while doctors monitored his brain swelling. When the swelling went down, Welling put the bone flaps back into place."

The article goes on to say that he would probably suffer a significant disability in terms of having to walk and talk again, cognitive function and all that jazz. I know wearing a lid is now almost universally enforced within this community, but I just thought I'd share this. It doesn't actually specify whether or not he was wearing a helmet, but from extensive damage I would assume not :S

Tags: accident, longboarding

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i wouldnt assume he wasnt wearing a helmet,.if you hit hard enough a helmet wont save you......gnarly tho,hope he gets well soon
What newspaper did you get this from? interested to see the whole story
Motorcycle helmets might seem uncool but they are the only ones that can handle massive impacts and piercing objects on concrete and roads.
Strange they don't indicate what he actually did other than fell off longboard. To fracture your skull in 10 places you think would require some sort of very unusual crash that would in its self be reportable. Slightly odd comment at the end about re: "I won't longboard again but snowboard definitely" a sport that is significantly more dangerous than lonboarding, obviously his brain hasn't fully healed yet.
Unfortunately they also cause severe neck injury and concussion from 60km/h crashes

colin olive said:
Motorcycle helmets might seem uncool but they are the only ones that can handle massive impacts and piercing objects on concrete and roads.
Concussion at 60? Gee ive come off several times over the last 20yrs racing (road bikes) at Easter creek at well over 100ks AND slamed my head AND walked away! Most good full face helmets stop the head from hyperextending during impact, broken collerbones and soft tissue injury in the neck do happen, however it is only because these areas absorb some of the impact force (from both helmet and from the neck actually absorbing impact foces as well) The alternative is usually death or brain dammage.....ill take the sore neck!
This thing about Full face helmets giving serious neck injuries has been around for a while , usually sprouted by people not in the iindustry, Watch the moto Gp boys come off,,,how many hurt there neck?

What im tryn to say is that skate helmets even some dh ones are just toys...on the other hand motorcycle helmets are designed for one thing and one thing only..to save your life in extreme situations! Now all we need is someone to make one designed for skateboarding, but with motorcycle quality!

Robbo said:
Unfortunately they also cause severe neck injury and concussion from 60km/h crashes

colin olive said:
Motorcycle helmets might seem uncool but they are the only ones that can handle massive impacts and piercing objects on concrete and roads.
Skateboarders on the street don't crash at moto GP speeds. When you crash at speeds lower than a moto gp rider a moto gp hemet is as dynamic as a concrete block. The alternative to crashing at 60kms which is the max speed of 99% of longboarders is not death, the alternative is to have a helmet that absorbs appropriately at those lower speeds and does not give you unnecessary injury that more generally occurs at higher speeds. The problem is when you crash in a full moto helmet at any speed you always hit your head and that is simply unnecessary

I admit I'm not in the motorcycle industry but I do run a national skateboarding association and I do work in the industry and have been doing this for some years now.
I think we should let the moto GP boys in on the fact that there helmets are going to injure them if they crash at 60k's or under?,, i dont think so! A helmet is as dynamic as a concrete block only if it weighs the same as a concrete block!!
I understand what your saying though,,kids on skateboards usually have skinny necks and a heaver style helmet (motorcycle)may be to much, again we betta let jnr motorcycle racers in on that one lol....Id just like to see something inbetween with an Australian standard like the AS1698 us bikers have.

Robbo said:
Skateboarders on the street don't crash at moto GP speeds. When you crash at speeds lower than a moto gp rider a moto gp hemet is as dynamic as a concrete block. The alternative to crashing at 60kms which is the max speed of 99% of longboarders is not death, the alternative is to have a helmet that absorbs appropriately at those lower speeds and does not give you unnecessary injury that more generally occurs at higher speeds. The problem is when you crash in a full moto helmet at any speed you always hit your head and that is simply unnecessary

I admit I'm not in the motorcycle industry but I do run a national skateboarding association and I do work in the industry and have been doing this for some years now.
The version of this story in today's MX described a longboard as "a surfboard on wheels". That is going to give a lot of people a seriously wierd picture of longboards....well, apart from those Globe foamies that is...
lol... on a similar note we may want to inform all the cyclists, snowboarders, skiers, horseriders, DH mountain bikers, bigwave surfers, BMX's, and wakeboarders that also travel at a similar speed the safety they are missing in not wearing a full size motorcycle helmet.

The arguments regarding moto helmets in DH skateboarding have already happened. 12 years of racing and not a single death. Unfortunately we can't make that same case with motor racing.

The problem for motorcycle helmet standards companies is that all they want to make is a helmet that can withstand an impact similar to Earth hitting Mars. Unfortunately every speed below that is compromised by the need to hit test marks at very high speed. Simple commonsense would dictate that a helmet designed like that will not give favorable compression at lower speeds or else it would obviously be compromised at higher speeds. At 60kms a Mountain bike helmet would soften impact better for a motorcyclist, the difference is that a motorcyclist has the capacity to move very quickly from that lower speed of 60km upto 200km in the blink of an eye. Fortunately thats not a problem that longboarders have to deal with.
dont let this thread turn in to a debate about which full faces are best. it will jstu get closed after all 1000 members of this board put in their 2 cents of which 500 will probably change their minds during the course of reading.

personally i agree with robbo but that isnt the point. just leave it out of this thread :)

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