Ridecamp: [RC] HELMETS- think of your loved ones

Dorann bonnfyrefarms@xxxxxxxxx
Even though I am a full time lurker here at RIDECAMP, I feel I have to add my two cents to this discussion.
I grew up riding in "Pony Club". Riding without a helmet was not an option.
At age 19 I became a profesesional horse trainer, showing and competing Arabian Horses at the National Championship Level.  The only time I wore a helmet was when I was jumping.  I have no idea what I was thinking at the time, since I have had some pretty cuckoo horses in my day.  However, it would be considered "tacky" to ride with a helmet in the warm up ring at Class A Shows.
Fast forward now for the last few years. My show barn is now full with endurance horses and riders.(We currently take up to ten horses to the rides)
When I started my "endurance craze" I never wore my helmet. You see my stallion had lots of AERC miles on him, and he is the quietest most gentle animal you would want to be partnered with. Imagine my surprise when he tripped while trotting down a very tiny incline and fell on me.  I felt my head strike the ground three times as he slid on top of me.  Although I came out of that fall relatively unscathed, that was the end of my non-helmet riding days anywhere. I think that decision saved my life when while at an endurance ride in 2001, my very good mare, while at a stop, turned around rather quickly to see where her riding buddy was (he was making a pit stop). I was taking a drink of water, so my hands were off my reins.  My mare simply turned around without looking and we flipped over a bank.  There was a ditch filled with boulders on the other side. She thrashed on top of me until I managed to extracate myself. My helmet was dented where the boulder hit.
If that is not enough to convince all you other non helmet riding people out there......
In 1999 my sister had a horrible car accident that landed her in a coma for two months.  After she "woke up" she went into the brain injury rehab center. I will never get out of my mind the human beings I saw at that facility. The majority of them were never going to have any sort of normalcy in their lives. If they were animals none of us would have the heart to keep them alive.  Most of these brain injuries were not car related, but accident related to some type of sport.
Please put your ego aside and consider your loved ones. No family should have to go through the horror of having someone they love with a brain injury, especially one that could have been prevented by simply wearing a helmet. The emotional havoc and not to mention the financial ruination is not worth "looking cool".  We can not prevent all accidents, but for goodness sake we need to take care when we can.
My sisters brain injury sent my fathers fragile health into a tail spin.  I feel like I lost my dad and my sister at the same time.  I don't want to put my family through something like that again, especially when I can take precautions.
Please, wear that helmet.

Dorann
Bonn-Fyre Farms/Training Center
Moorpark, CA
http://www.geocities.com/bonnfyrefarms/index.html







=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
 Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
 Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-