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I watched one of my sons friends go over the bars on a downhil drop off 4th gear pinned and pile drive into the ground head first with enough force to break both his helmet and the Leatt.
Our friend was back at the track later that same day with bruises and a concussion but he was walking.
The Doctor looked at both the helmet and brace and flat out told our friend he was amazed at how well the brace protected him from a spinal injury.
That is all the evidence and data I need to decide that my decision for my son to never ride without his Leatt on was the correct choice.
IMO it's not comparable to a helmet, boots, or even a chest protector. It's in a category all it's own and I can fully understand why people are skeptical. But I'll take the possibility of added protection any day over the possibility of a debilitating injury that may have been prevented had I had the brace on.
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Obviously it was not a serious fracture because he rode the 2nd moto with the fracture, but it was fractured nonetheless.
Was the seriousness of the fracture lessened by his use of the brace?
We will never know
Was the fracture created by the brace, due to the location of the fracture and the protection tab on the lower back?
We will never know
I wear one, and both my kids, 19 and 15 also do. More by my wanting them too than anything else. Comfort is a factor, and my 19 year old thinks he rides better with out..
I watched the after math of a rider going down on the Holy Schmit tabletop a few weeks back. Endo'd head first into the ground. Airlifted to Mayo in Rochester. Broken wrist and 6 compress fractured vertebra, starting at C6. That's about where the back plate on the Leatt starts.
He was wearing a high end Shoei helmet. His forehead was one big bruise, and took the brunt of the impact. He was also wearing a Leatt brace. Today he is at home, in a back brace and very sore. On the flip side, he's walking, talking, going to the dinner table no his own, making bathroom stops, and everything else kids do..
We can discuss what may have been with or without protective gear. I'm confident from watching what happened, and talking wtih a doc from Mayo that I know, this rider would most likely be paralyzed or worse if he had not been wearing a Leatt. That forehead bruise is a tell tale sign of what "could have been" if different "choices" were made.
That's enough for me to go through putting one on, fitting it beneath my TLD chest protector, not being able to turn my head as freely as I could with out.
It's all about choices. Here's to hoping none of us ever have to worry about what might have been if that choice is to not wear one.
But sometimes you have to make a decision without it.
In this case the market is so small and specialised that I doubt there will ever be "good" data on whether or not a neck brace is worthwhile for dirtbikes because no-one could ever justify the cost of the research.
The nearest thing I can think of as an equivalent is F1 where I believe it is now mandatory for drivers to wear neck braces due to the forces on the neck during crashes. Maybe there is some data down that avenue that might be relevant for dirtbikes?
Not even close to a valid comparison
I’m an engineer and My job is to design electrical circuits, take data on them, and present it to a bunch of PhD’s. Data is everything in my job, but some times you can’t take all the data that you would like, and you have to rely on your education and past experiences to make the best decision you can about a design until some other data proves otherwise.
In life we all play the odds, Whether it is to walk across a street or to jump a 80’ triple we all chose what level of risk we are comfortable with.
Enjoying life the way you want to and limiting the odds of a life ending or changing event is what it’s all about.
The two reasons that I have chosen to wear the Leatt brace every time I ride is that one it passes my own common since test that it will lower my odds of a life changing event and two it was design by an orthopedic surgeon who has a passion for motocross and was probably making good money when he stated this business. Right education, right experience, right motivation.
I got transferred to 1 of the best back surgeons in the UK and when he saw my injury he was baffled at how i had managed to break my lower vertebrae from a crash that was head first into a tree and he demanded to see my helmet and neck brace. My arai helmet was absolutely wrecked and the right buckle on my leatt was snapped. Anyway this back specialist was amazed at how i was even alive and really believes that the leatt brace did it's job. He told my dad to get in touch with Chris Leatt himself and after talking to him on the phone Chris wanted to see my x-rays and photos of my helmet and leatt brace. He arranged for me and my dad to meet up with his business partner at the 2008 Mallory Park GP and after a long chat i got a brand new Leatt Brace absolutely free.
If you want some good data then i suggest you go and talk to Ernesto Fonseca. A guy sitting in a chair for the rest of his life saying how much he wishes the Leatt was out when he was riding is more than enough data for me.
DO YOU LEATT ? IF YOU DON'T, YOU SHOULD
I crashed head and shoulder first from about 8-10 feet in the air. Yeah, I broke my collar bone, and ribs and on and on... I wasn't wearing one, and am fine today...
There have been some crazy crashes at the nationals this year, some guys wearing a neck brace and some not. It's a personal choice, let it go...
If folks wanna use them based on faith, I say go for it. But dont get miffed at Nerd for how he views these matters either. I for one am the exact same way.
Does that mean don't wear one? no not necessarily. I wear an EVS and I'd much rather be safe than sorry (...sorrier)
Does that mean it will have unintended consequences from time to time? yes.
I'm curious why he wears one at all.
"I was In a Grocery Store, With my Daughter, When I had a Heart Attack. I Took an Aspirin Out of my Purse (Brand Not Specified), and Chewed it. The Doctor Said it Saved my Life"
There is no way to know specifically if that aspirin "saved her life"
What about paramedic action or response time?
How quickly was 911 called?
How bad of a heart attack was it...Mild? Major?
What was the cause of the "heart attack?" Clot? Irregular rhythm?
Why do I bring this up (if you haven't already figured out), is all of these "it saved my/his/her life" claims...there is no way of knowing definitively, it is purely speculation. There are far too many variables to state definitively that "XXX Brace saved his life"
Pit Row
I like the Tommy Boy quote, just watched the movie the other day ..again
The thing is, I would deal with comfort problems if there was data showing its effectiveness. However, since I don't have the data, I don't worry about dealing with the comfort problems.
That's my point!
Keep in mind, I'm not saying that it causes paralysis, but I am saying that we don't know if it does or doesn't. With Ramon breaking his C7, as Dave pointed out, does this mean that he likely would've been fine with no spinal damage without the brace? Or does it mean the damage would've been higher up his spine without it? Or would the injury be the same either way?
How do we know?
Look at the RC story I told earlier. He lawn-darted in the whoops, and he had a huge bruise on his sternum from the facemask of his helmet. He was fine.
So once we compile the data, we should be able to tell mathematically what likelihood he would've had to possibly, break a collarbone or suffer a concussion because the brace stopped his neck from going that far forward. Maybe it would be no more likely at all, at which point why take the risk in not wearing it? However, maybe it is quite a bit more likely to suffer other types of injuries because of how the brace restricts head movement and how it distributes the impact, at which point RC may have been better off without it.
But how do we know? That's the point.
One thing that I think is very likely, though, is that your head will take more of the impact force with a brace on, and that's common sense considering how it restricts your head movement. So how much more likely are you to suffer serious head injuries with or without it? If you're not much more likely, and you can demonstrate that it's definitely much more likely to have a positive benefit for your spine, then you should definitely wear it. But if the opposite is true, you probably shouldn't.
But how do we know?
That's the data I want.
I do know that I had quite a few very bad crashes in my day, including more than one "lawn dart" and I'm fine, so to be honest, it makes the stories about people who were "definitely saved" by the brace seem kind of crazy. No one knows that. And as with the RC crash, it shows there is no guarantee of that sort of injury from that sort of mechanism.
But the brace very well may significantly reduce the likelihood of SCIs. But how do we know?
This sort of thinking is why Nigerians steal hundreds of millions of dollars every year through email scams.
And no, I'm not comparing the braces to Nigerian email scams, just the fact that people seem to be okay with not having proof of things.
It seems to me that companies that sell these neck braces would WANT to put together the data to prove exactly how effective their braces are. What better advertising could there be than if an ad said, "Independent studies have suggested that wearing a Leatt Brace reduces your risk of suffering a spinal-cord injury by 75%."?
Who wouldn't buy one and wear it religiously when confronted with a number like that?
Or gloves.
Or goggles.
Or padded pants.
And as far as helmet use specific to off road riding, there is none.
This logic makes absolutely no sense.....
As for goggles? That's ridiculous! Do you really think there's no data to show that it's better not to have rocks flying into your eyes?
You took what might have been a decent point to start with and turned it retarded!
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