This week a coroner's report into the death of a 16-year-old exchange student on Grouse Mountain recommended the province consider making helmet use mandatory on all B.C. ski hills.
Snowboarder Luca Cesar died in 2013 after suffering traumatic brain injuries when he apparently went off a ski run. He wasn't wearing a helmet at the time.
The report noted trauma doctors say using helmets can significantly reduce traumatic injury and death. Head injuries accounted for 20 to 26 per cent of snowboard and skirelated deaths between 2007 and 2013. The Canadian Paediatric Society has come out in favour of ski helmets.
Yet predictably, there's push-back, mostly from groups associated with ski resorts, who don't like the idea that they'll have to enforce regulations making helmet use mandatory. There's also the argument that helmets won't protect against the most serious injuries - say when someone hits a tree at high speed.
Neither of those arguments is persuasive.
Once upon a time, people considered wearing seatbelts an infringement on their personal freedom and likely a pain in the butt to enforce. Similarly, motorcyclists and cyclists once argued their rights to feel the wind in their hair. Fortunately, we've decided that protecting their heads from cracking on asphalt is more important.
Do seatbelts and bike helmets save lives every time? No. Are they still a worthwhile and important harm-reduction measure? Of course.
There aren't too many activities today where sending a fragile human noggin down a steep hard slope at high speed without a helmet is considered acceptable.
There are always trade-offs between freedom and safety.
On this issue, coming down on the side of safety isn't brain surgery.
