A friend's brother had a devastating motorcycle accident last week. I post her words here to remind us all to wear a full face helmet. And for those of you who are not motorcyclists, please watch out for us. Most of our accidents happen because you don't see us.
Since my brother Colin's motorcycle accident, I have become an outspoken advocate for full-face helmets. At the time of his crash, he was wearing a helmet that looks like a WWII German motorcycle helmet replica.
Though it looked cool (to him), the consequences were devastating. He broke EVERY bone in his face. This included shattering both cheek (zygomatic) bones, breaking the occipital bones, shattering his nasal bone, fracturing his hard palate (I think this is the maxilla bone) and the frontal bone (part of skull above the eyes). He broke his jaw (mandible) in two places (the front and on the right side where it attaches to the skull). The mandible pierced the protective sac around the brain. As well, he burst a blood vessel in his head and has a hematoma under the skull near his right temple.
Officer Rand of the Seattle Police Department returned the helmet to my brother at the hospital. It didn't have a scratch on it. Well, not until I took a chain saw to it....haha.
- Sarah
A full-face helmet definitely affords a rider greater protection than those stylish brain buckets, but I can testify they're not the be all and end all. Despite the full-facer I was wearing the night of my accident 10 years ago when I t-boned a car that pulled a U-turn from the curb 40 feet in front of me, my nose was crushed, right ocular orbit cracked, upper jaw smashed, right eyelid ripped off, 10 teeth sheered or broken and enough lacerations to get the stitch doctors busy for eight hours.
I hope your friend's brother has a safe and speedy recovery.
Posted by: Will Campbell | May 05, 2005 at 10:00 PM