American alpine skier Scott Macartney crashed in Kitzbuhel downhill race in last weekend and lost his consciousness. Even though his crashes look very bad and he was taken to hospital unconscious, Scott Macartney is recovering with no injuries. He only suffered concussion, even though a serious one. Scott was very lucky this time. The results of Macartney’s crash could have been much worse.

Scott Macartney has regained his consciousness and has given an interview to SkiRacing.Com. Scott said he remembered his run but has no memory of the crash. He is looking forward to returning to races. Scott says “My run felt pretty good. I nailed the sections up above that I wanted to and I carried good speed. I think I was fifth up there and, overall, I had a really good run. But I’m not sure what I did on the last jump. Maybe I didn’t move forward enough or something, but I got out of balance in the air and crashed “.

I was a little bit shocked with Macartney’s crash. I have always been interested in skiing downhill or just fast. I have crashed many times, but never in such a speed like Scott did (140 km/h). I have also jumped 40 meter jumps, but Scott Macartney jumped 60 meters and crashed. It was absolutely a terrible crash.

Yesterday I spent couple of hours in Snowheads.Com, EpicSki.Com and TelemarkTalk.Com, and discussed with people about Scott Macartney’s crash. In two threads we discussed about the importance of a helmet in skiing. People mentioned how a helmet has saved them from injuries. I also joined the discussion by describing how I started using a helmet in 1998. I purchased a helmet in one morning and went skiing with friends. We headed to the backcountries as always and spent the day out. During my last run, just before skiing down to parking place, I hit a jump which was icy and lousy one. I got out of balance and lost my control. I fell on my back, hit my head to the ground and I lost my consciousness for few seconds. After regaining my consciousness I had a bad headache and suffered concussion. I was glad I had the helmet.

Scott Macartney lost his helmet in the crash. Whatever the reason for loosing the helmet is, the most important point is that he had the helmet in his head when he hit the icy slope. Without a helmet he would probably suffered very bad traumatic head injury. While reading forum posts yesterday, I realized that there are people who do not use a helmet when skiing. Well, I understand that people skiing slowly do not like wearing a helmet, but my short and simple recommendation for everyone is “use a helmet“. No matter what is your speed or where do you ski, just use a helmet. Helmet is a cheap insurance. Period.