It’s a simple statement, but a profound one: wearing a helmet can save your life.

Obvious, sure, but sometimes it takes a pretty blunt lesson to drive a point home, and in one of the most direct ways possible, I had that message literally knocked up side my head this week.

While taking some of the rocky hills towards the end of the No. 9 trail between the Wabasso trailhead and the Valley of the Five Lakes on my bike, I took a five star, head first dive off my bike into a rock. Without the helmet on my noggin, while I doubt I’d have died, I’d be nursing a serious egg on my head and would probably be suffering through the spells of a major concussion. I literally took my helmet off after the crash and kissed it. You are my new best friend, I said.

It wasn’t always like this.

I worked for a summer as a bike messenger, blasting around the streets of Toronto as fast as humanly possible with out wearing a helmet. I figured if I got dinged by a Mack truck coming down Yonge Street at 60 clicks an hour, I was good as dead anyways. Pretty dumb, right? 

The rocks and up and down terrain of the Rocky Mountains changed that mindset pretty quickly. It’s just easier to wreck yourself out here, although those Toronto cabbies who delight in making life hard for bike messengers will probably take issue with that.

So, reluctantly, I started to wear a helmet and feel safer, stronger and just happier on my bike. It’s peace of mind about my mind.

But a helmet is not a guaranteed life saver and wearing one isn’t an excuse to do any stupid thing that pops into your head while on a bike, snowboard or set of skis.

Stewart Levy, a Denver neurosurgeon who studies head injuries among skiers and snowboarders, interviewed in the New York Times in January, said that more than 90 per cent of deaths on the slopes involve a person striking a fixed object with their head at a high rate of speed. He considers the average rate of speed that skiers and snowboarders travel to be around 43 km/hr.

“At that speed, if you suffer a direct impact with a fixed object, then death is a likely outcome,” he told the Times. “Under those circumstances, it is likely that you will need more than a helmet to make a difference.”

His conclusion: most deaths that happen on the slopes are going to happen anyways, helmet or no.

What helmets are great for, however, is preventing concussions and serious brain injuries. Levy believes that wearing a helmet could reduce the chance of sustaining a brain injury by 50 to 80 percent. 

Concussions aren’t fun. No one likes the headaches, naseau and the dizziness that goes along with a serious belt to the head. There’s a growing body of evidence that concussions are seriously bad for your health. Perhaps even deadly.

In his 12 seasons in the NFL, Philadelphia Eagles star back Andre Waters was known to be a particularly brutal tackler in the NFL. It made him a star. That’s why when he shot himself in the head at the age of 44 while suffering from a severe bout of depression, it seemed so incongruous. Why would a tough guy star athlete kill himself when he was supposed to be enjoying the fruits of retirement?

Forensic pathologists who did the autopsy on Waters found some startling results however. At 44, he had the brain of 85-year old man with early Alzheimer’s disease. The concussions over the years in the NFL had basically destroyed his brain.

Waters was basically a professional human battering ram. He lived a life that very few do. Still, snowboarders, bikers and skiers are much more likely than the sedate to concuss themselves. It just happens. We know the repeated concussions on the level of Waters is extremely bad for your health, but the results of less frequent concussions is still not fully known. 

This winter, the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club, in partnership with Aspen Orthopaedic Associates, rigged the helmets of more than 300 young skiers and snowboarders with wireless equipment to measure the number and force of any head injuries sustained on the slopes.

The researchers also hope to measure the severity of those head injuries against ones sustained in other sports, like football. 

In the meantime, I’ve heard the human brain has been described before as the most valuable possession you will ever own. So take care care of it. If you bike, wear one. If you’re in the snowboard park, hitting rails, wear one too. Protect your brain. It’s the only one you have.

DISCLAIMER: The Last Word is an opinion column, it is meant to provoke thought and debate. As such, any opinions written here are the writers own and do not reflect the viewpoint of any other Fitzhugh staff member or the directors of the Jasper Media Group Inc.