Re: RC: Re: Helmets required!!!

[David LeBlanc <dleblanc@mindspring.com>]

This is a little less scary, but my helmet did save me an injury once.
Jennifer and I had gotten a bit lost in a rainstorm on the top of a
mountain, and were very tired, and I was having problems with hypothermia
due to being soaked with cold water.  We were coming down a really nasty,
rutted trail that had 2 foot sheer drops in the trail, and it was rutted
enough that you couldn't go up on the sides.  After a really nasty
malfunction where I ended up with my head near Ozar's ears and nearly fell
under her, we decided that maybe we should _lead_ the horses.  So I'm
walking down this very slick clay path, tripped over my own feet, got my
hands tangled up in the reins, and fell right into a large dead branch head
first.  If I had not had a helmet, I would have gotten a nasty puncture
wound when we were about 15 miles from camp (and well out of cell phone
range, even when we did get back), and were already pretty unhappy about
life.  I've always worn one - Jennifer won't let someone get on one of our
horses without.  Also, my sister used to do a lot of rehab work with head
injury patients, and I definately don't want to become one.

One note about statistics and such - I don't know how many people per year
get what sort of injuries riding horses (is there a web site for this?),
but something that won't get recorded is how many people did _not_ get an
injury because they had their helmet on.  It is really hard to track that
sort of thing.  I figure this is a fairly dangerous activity we engage in,
and anything I can do to better my odds helps.  I used to be immortal, but
then I flipped my VW Bus end-over-end (yup, the long way) in a wreck with
no seatbelt on...


David LeBlanc
dleblanc@mindspring.com