Fast, fun and dangerous [Helmets for sleddings]

With the average speed of a sled reaching 19 mph, some health officials push for wearing helmets

Although she can't remember, Emily Ziebell was probably having fun four years ago while night sledding in Waukesha.

It was close to midnight at Lowell Park, which has one of the best sledding hills in the county, and Ziebell, who had just turned 20, jumped on a snow tube with a friend. The friend fell off while they were zooming down the hill, but Ziebell continued and slammed into a tree trunk, splitting open her skull and crushing her left arm.

Ziebell, now 24, still has speech and coordination issues but has recovered remarkably, said her mother, Mary.

Snow, gravity and speed have long been an exhilarating wintertime combination, but it's also one that produces a small but inevitable number of injuries. Area trauma centers are reporting the usual snowboarding wrist fractures, sledding concussions and ankle injuries, but Children's Hospital of Wisconsin already has admitted three children since Nov. 1 for sledding injuries. That's more in-patient sledding accident victims than in the five-month season last year.

How much to push?

Those figures, coupled with a new study that reports sleds reach average speeds of 19 miles per hour, have some health officials wondering how far to push the helmet issue.

"The challenge that we face is that it's not the norm - nor is it likely to ever be the norm - for kids to wear helmets while sledding," said Bridget Clementi, injury and prevention manager at Children's Hospital and Health System. Clementi said the Injury Free Coalition for Kids recently compared the average speed of a sled at 19 mph with the average speed of a kid on a bike, which is 10 to 15 mph.

Many parents have made it a habit to make kids wear helmets on their bikes, Clementi said.

"We don't want to kill the fun, but we are starting to look at reaching out to parents on sledding safety," Clementi said.

Clementi said parents should be aware of where their children are sledding and be around to supervise if necessary. She said children should slide feet first and parents who ride with small children probably should practice bailing out so the child knows what to do in case of an emergency.

Sledding helmets for sale

Health industry professionals aren't the only ones who have become more attuned to the helmet issue. For the first time this year, Blain's Farm & Fleet stocked sledding helmets beside its sleds.

Blain's supply spokeswoman Renee Tarnutzer couldn't say whether the helmets, which cost about $18 and cover the ears, were selling well, but Thursday at the Farm and Fleet in Waukesha, every sled, toboggan, disc and snow tube was sold out.

"I push (helmets) with bicycling; it's an automatic. But we haven't gotten to the point of wearing them while sledding," parent Amy James said Friday at Lowell Park. Around her, children on all sorts of plastic sleds reached the bottom of the hill, hooting and laughing.

James added her family's safe sledding regimen includes choosing hills that are less steep and that have no fixed obstacles in the way.

"I think it's part of how you were raised. I didn't wear a helmet sledding growing up," James said. "But then again, I didn't wear a seat belt either. Who knows? Maybe in a couple years we'll all wear helmets out here."

At the request of Children's Hospital, Waukesha police Officer Jake Trussoni used his radar gun on Lowell Park's sledders Friday. The slowest speed on the wet and sticky snow was 10 mph, the fastest speed, recorded by adult/child teams on sleds and a pair of adolescent snowboarders, was 17 mph.

Sporting a pair of camouflaged snow pants and a new snowboard, Jordan Schimel,12, also wore a black, vented helmet while coming down the hill.

"I don't wear a helmet while riding a bike," Jordan said. "But this is my third time snowboarding, and when I tried it for the first time in Colorado this year, I broke my wrist. I haven't been out in a few days so I thought I'd wear it."

Schimel's friend 12-year-old Chaz Perry said he had a helmet but forgot to bring it with him Friday. It's not that helmets are uncool or anything, Chaz said, but he added he wouldn't want to wear one while sledding.

Mary Ziebell said her family advocates using bike helmets but isn't sure about sledding helmets.

"Could (a helmet) have helped Emily? Maybe," she said. "But it doesn't provide help for everything, and her brain still would have been knocked around. I think it's more important to be extraordinarily careful about where you sled."

I Can’t Believe We Made It!

According to today’s regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s, 70’s or even the early 80’s, probably shouldn’t have survived.

Our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paint.

We had no childproof lids or locks on medicine bottles, doors, or cabinets, and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets.

Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose
and not from a bottle. Horrors!

We ate cupcakes, bread and butter, and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then rode down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable!

We did not have Play stations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends! We went outside and found them.

We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?

We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it.

We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out any eyes.
We rod e bikes or walked to a friend’s home and knocked on the door, or rang the bell or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn’t had to learn to deal with disappointment.

Some students weren’t as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Horrors!

Tests were not adjusted for any reason.

Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.

The idea of parents bailing us out if we got in trouble in school or broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the school or the law. Imagine that!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers, and inventors, ever.

We had freedom, failure, success, and responsibility — and we learned how to deal with it. And you’re one of them!

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