Boy's toboggan death renews calls for winter helmet use

The death of a 12-year-old Gilbert Plains, Man.,boy in a tobogganing mishap on Sunday has renewed calls for children to wear helmets while sledding, snowboarding, skiing or enjoying other outdoor winter activities.

Kasey Thompson was sliding down a hill with his older brother in Gilbert Plains, about 30 kilometres west of Dauphin in western Manitoba, when their toboggan hit a bump and flew in the air, landing with "significant impact" on some ice at the bottom of the hill.

An autopsy done Monday on Kasey found that he died of a brain stem injury, according to an RCMP release issued Tuesday. Investigators ruled that the incident was an accident. The boy was not wearing a helmet at the time.

While wearing a helmet is not mandatory for outdoor winter activities in Manitoba, it's something children should consider, Winnipeg pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Patrick McDonald suggests.

"I know that sounds odd to most people, but when you think about it, you're hurtling down a hill at very high speeds often with hazards all around and a helmet can prevent or significantly decrease the severity of an injury," McDonald said Wednesday.

He suggested children wear a skiing or snowboarding helmet when tobogganing. Such helmets can protect the head after multiple hits, unlike a cycling helmet, which he said is not designed to sustain multiple hits.

A November 1996 report by the Public Health Agency of Canada on sledding injuries found that children were most often injured when they fell off their toboggans, sleds or crazy carpets, or collided with an obstacle or person.

The report said 40.1 per cent of injuries involved falling off the sled, 32.6 per cent involved colliding with a rock, tree or snowbank, and 15.3 per cent involved colliding with another person.

A variety of risks

McDonald said parents and children should also be on the lookout for a variety of safety risks while tobogganing.

"The majority of severe injuries in tobogganing are head injuries, as you can imagine. But there's virtually every other thing you can think of. If you toboggan onto thin ice, you can fall through the ice," he said.

"Arms and legs are commonly broken. And at even the more extreme, wearing a scarf that's hanging loose, it can get stuck on something and you can choke yourself."

David Sullivan, executive director of the Manitoba Brain Injury Association, said Tuesday that helmets should be mandatory for all outdoor winter activities.

"The best cure for brain injury is prevention," said Sullivan.

"Imagine how that family must feel. It's like a car accident: are they avoidable or not? And people would argue that, yeah, they aren't really accidents. There's things you can do."

Sullivan added that even those who survive head injuries are often left with serious disabilities.