When we teach kids at bike rodeos , one of the central messages we deliver is that wearing a helmet could mean the difference between not only life and death, but also life and disability. A line which I’ve heard used that seemed to resonate well was to ask them if they could buy a new helmet (“yeesss”) and then ask if they could buy a new head (“um…”).

In law enforcement, the only ones of us regularly wearing helmets are the bike guys themselves, motor officers, and SWAT or specialty teams, but the specter of head trauma and the effects even a “mild” blow can have on our long-term health make it time that we took a closer look at whether or not a helmet makes sense for regular patrol – and not just for ballistic purposes during an active shooter incident or riot.

Your Head and You

Compared to the naked skull, a football helmet has been found to reduce the risk of skull fracture by 60-70%, focal brain contusion (bruising) by 70-80%, and the risk of traumatic brain injury (TBI) by about 20%, according to a study cited in a FLETC presentation by Alex Hawkins, AT, NREMT and Curt Grob, MD (1). Any contact sport that you enroll your kid in these days, right up through the professional level, now requires helmets as a result of studies such as those done recently with NFL players, which provide us with a plethora of data suggesting that head impacts can and do have a profound effect upon health and the quality of life of the injured individual far beyond the initial period after it occurs.

Now, you might think that it’d be pretty rare that you would get hit in the head when you’re at work, but law enforcement faces far greater threats to our noggins than NFL players and other athletes on a daily basis, especially when you consider that it’s not extremely likely that anyone there could get smacked with something like a metal pipe, or have their head slammed off of pavement, and it’s a heck of a lot less likely that they’re going to be punched or kicked in the head without a helmet on. Even if you’re not facing down a pipe-wielding suspect, it doesn’t take a lot of force to cause an injury that could potentially take you out of a possibly deadly fight. (Imagine if you “got your bell rung” by a well-placed right hook when a suspect was struggling for your weapon, for instance.)

Even if you do make it through that immediate threat after getting walloped, having sustained even a mild concussion during the fight means that you could spend up to a week recovering – if it’s your second concussion, it could be up to two weeks, and your third, more than a month, during which time your doctor will tell you not to return to normal physical or mental activity levels to let your brain heal (1). Additionally, you may face long-term symptoms including vision problems, memory issues, hearing loss, or personality changes, to name just a few realistically possible outcomes, all of which affect not only your career, but your life as whole.

You and Your Head

The arguments against wearing a helmet of some kind for everyday use are probably pretty similar to those faced by body armor when it first came about: comfort, look, weight, and range of motion. Thankfully, however, modern materials science can now reduce many of those concerns, just like advances in body armor technology have taken it from bulky, heavy, and cumbersome down to the relatively slim and flexible armor that most of us are now issued for daily wear. It is entirely possible to have a helmet that looks okay and doesn’t have the bulk of walking around with a motor helmet on.

The protective aspects of our body armor are unquestioned and proven in the real world on an (unfortunately more frequent these days) ongoing basis. Just as with a helmet, however, they far more often protect us from smaller impacts than the “big one” they’re engineered to protect for – being punched in the trauma plate is going to hurt the suspect a lot more than it does you, and even having the extra layers of material in the body armor between you and their strike is going to take some of the force off of the impact. Another important scenario to consider: car accidents, which maim and kill many officers every year – maybe having a helmet on during a pursuit isn’t such a bad idea.

So the question becomes, why wouldn’t we wear some kind of head protection if it was available and suitable for the environments that we work in? It may sacrifice a bit of comfort, especially in warmer weather – just like our body armor does, with the same risks of overheating that we must protect against – but the injuries which it prevents are far more statistically likely to happen than being shot, and potentially just as devastating… even if it’s only a glancing blow, but one to the wrong part of the most important part of your body.

Hawkins, AT, NREMT, Alex, and Curt Grob, MD. "Traumatic Brain Injury." The International Association of Chiefs Of Police. IACP, 2014. Web. 28 Sept. 2015. <http://www.theiacp.org/portals/0/documents/pdfs/MD2014_TraumaticBrainInjury.pdf>.

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Greg Bogosian is certified as a Reserve/Intermittent Police Officer by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and spent twelve years working as an EMT-Basic, including four years as a field EMT and dispatcher for the City of Boston EMS. He was additionally a member of a Federal medical disaster relief team for ten years, with experience responding to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the pre-deployment of resources for Hurricane Ike. Greg currently has a passion for educating public safety professionals about matters which impact their lives every day, and welcomes feedback and suggestions in the spirit of ensuring that best practices make it out there for all to benefit from.