Helmet with Built In Freezer

[bmurphypdx]

Very cool!

[effexer1]

[JayW]

It seems like a waste of engineering effort to me. Not all head injuries cause swelling in the brain, and I am skeptical that immediate cooling of the scalp would improve the outcome even if there were. What if the rider crashed because of dulled reflexes from hypothermia? This rig would cool the brain even further.

 

Not for my noggin.

 

Jay, MD

[11101110]

It appears to be not much more than a helmet specific instant cold pack.

[LeftCoastMan]

Usually, but not always, a helmet prevents traumatic brain injury. Usually, with a good helmet, the trauma is elsewhere.

 

Moreover, I just can't see where there is sufficient cooling to counteract blood flow. I'm skeptical that it would have an effect. Moreover, the company is prohibited by Federal Law from making any medical claims without significant clinical research. I can find lots of data that cooling the brain has an effect, but the company has to prove in clinical trials that its method of preventing further brain injury is safe and efficacious. I read the website, and I'm seeing a serious lack of medical information. My guess is that the FDA will be shutting them down soon. I've seen this time and again, where a garage shop inventor thinks he has the greatest medical device ever, starts selling it, and get shot down. And then they have to pay significant fines to the FDA. Not good.

 

In the article, there was an interesting post by an EMT. To get an airway to a victim, the EMT's have to remove the helmet. The problem with this is that we have a tight fit to the head, so to remove the helmet means that you have to place some amount of force on the spine and neck. I never thought of that before. This makes a good argument for the Shoei's where the face of the helmet lifts up (forgot its name). Of course, unless you know what you're doing, you wouldn't know that the face can lift up.

 

Sometimes EMT's get an airway, and leave the helmet on, which is very difficult. Once the neck and spine are stabilized in an ER, the helmet is sawed off with surgical saws.

 

This article has given me a lot of thought about helmets. Hmmmm.

[Nice n Easy Rider]

It would seem to me that there must be some data out there regarding the number of cervical spine injuries in motorcyclists wearing helmets versus those not wearing helmets when they crash. If there were more cervical injuries in the helmet-wearing group that might support the idea that the injuries occur during helmet removal. However, I would think that if such a trend were occurring we would have heard about it by now, especially from those seeking to reverse helmet laws.

Can any of the EMTs on the board shed some light on the plausibility of this idea?

[mrduck]

Kinda hard for me to take these guys seriously when right there in the ad they refer to the helmet as a "brain bucket"!

 

 

 

Don J

[LeftCoastMan]

It would seem to me that there must be some data out there regarding the number of cervical spine injuries in motorcyclists wearing helmets versus those not wearing helmets when they crash. If there were more cervical injuries in the helmet-wearing group that might support the idea that the injuries occur during helmet removal. However, I would think that if such a trend were occurring we would have heard about it by now, especially from those seeking to reverse helmet laws.

Can any of the EMTs on the board shed some light on the plausibility of this idea?

 

Although EMT opinions are welcome, they are not going to give us statistically valid information. Nothing more than anecdotes which drives me crazy on these boards.

 

Here is an article by Cochrane Reviews regarding motorcycle trauma and helmet use. Cochrane Reviews is an important source in the medicine in that they combine and analyze data from a large number of published articles. The full article can't be viewed by you guys, but there's a key point which answers Nice n Easy–"Insufficient evidence was found to estimate the effect of motorcycle helmets compared with no helmet on facial or neck injuries." That means either there isn't enough evidence, or there's no statistical difference.

 

Cervical spine injuries probably would not be caused by the removal of the helmet, but could exacerbate a fracture or displacement.

[11101110]

former EMT here. One good reason and only the only reason for removing the helmet in the field is to establish and airway. If you don't breath you don't live. But leaving it on you have to build up the backboard with blankets and such to maintain proper c-spine alignment. A lot of EMTs don't realize this. It is also a good idea to remove the head immobilizer from the back board as they usually create an inch of build up and they really don't work to well with a helmet.

 

Most of the motorcycle crashed I responded to the rider was not wearing a helmet. In one case the rider crashed because a cop was in pursuit. The rider was making a drug run but the primary reason the cop was after him was lack of helmet. The few that did have a helmet had already removed theirs by the time we got there. Still some had decent road rash.

 

BTLS teaches how to remove a helmet in the field but only if you need airway access.

[LeftCoastMan]

In trauma, there is what is called the golden hour, where if proper treatment is given, there is statistically significant increase in the chance of surviving trauma. The EMT's are critical to this golden hour, but in my experience, there is a wide gap between the best and the worst of EMT's and there are too many of the latter and too few of the former.

 

Thanks 11101110 in telling us that there is training on removing a helmet.

[lvnvbiker]

Good looking helmet IMO. I wonder if you can get refill cold packs. If there is a way to do it without a crash here in Vegas I'd trigger the chiller a few times a day during the summer.