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Send this to a friend Print-friendly version Winter Green Safe winter fun Choosing the right helmet Past Articles Subscribe to our Healthlink newsletter

ne of the best ways to be a happy Canadian through a long winter is to embrace the great outdoors. Doing something -playing hockey, skating, skiing, snowboarding, tobogganing-not only makes the cold months feel as if they're passing by quickly but it's also a great way to fight winter blahs and stay fit.

Winter activities aren't, however, without their hazards. For that reason, it pays to understand and respect the potential risks of what you're doing, use your common sense and take advantage of any related equipment. "What we endeavour to do is to have children and adults see the risks that they face in everyday life and make smart choices," explains John Carroll, project manager with SMARTRISK, a national non-profit injury-prevention organization that is the Canadian Health Network's Injury Prevention Affiliate. "Kids shouldn't stop tobogganing or snowboarding. But they need to look at where and how they choose to do these things."

Tobogganing
It's not an activity that's typically considered dangerous but there are hazards to tobogganing that shouldn't be trivialized. One study done through the emergency department at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa in 1999 looked at children's tobogganing incidents and found that
• 70 per cent of the injuries occurred on hills that had not been designated for tobogganing
• 51 per cent had been supervised by an adult
• 33 per cent of the injuries were as a result of a collision
• 28 per cent were from falls in icy conditions and 16 per cent were from going off jumps

Tobogganing safety really boils down to common sense. That means never going down a hill head first. And it also means assessing the environment before you start. "It's looking at a hill and at some inherent risks at the bottom of that hill," says Carroll. "Are there trees nearby? A roadway at the bottom? An open creek?" Just as dangerous, too, is a hill crowded with others either on toboggan or on foot.

Snowboarding
A comparatively recent addition to the winter-sports family, snowboarding is now more popular with younger people than skiing. And, as a result, there are an increasing number of injuries being reported-particularly to young men and most often to boarders between the ages of 10 and 19. Of the total injuries reported in 2002, Carroll says, 50 per cent were fractures and 40 per cent to the arm. For that reason, taking proper lessons and learning how to fall properly are advisable, and SMARTRISK recommends the use of wrist guards.

Fortunately, many snowboarding pros wear protective helmets, which sends a message to young boarders that it's cool to do so. Anything approved by the Canadian Standards Association will do the job. In addition, before you hit the hills, make sure the board is suitable for your size and that your bindings are in good shape.

Skiing
In 1999, a report by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission showed that wearing a helmet for skiing or snowboarding could reduce the severity of 44 per cent of head injuries to adults and 53 per cent of those injuries to kids under 15. And yet, as Carroll laments, protective helmets haven't been embraced by skiers nearly as much as they should have been.

The majority of ski injuries occur as a result of a fall and knees are the most common body part to be hurt. But 16 per cent of ski injuries are from running into a tree or falling off a cliff--and those are the injuries that tend to be the most severe. "People sometimes extend the risk and go beyond the limits of their own capacity and the environment so that the numbers of fatalities and severe head and spinal cord injuries remain at alarming levels," says Carroll.

Skating/Hockey
Interestingly, the mean age for injuries from skating and hockey is higher than might be expected; for skating, the average age of the injured is 36, for hockey, it's just under 25. Much of the reason for that is that the message about the importance of wearing a Canadian Standards Association-approved helmet for pleasure skating seems to have been embraced by parents for their children and, of course, most young kids playing hockey are in full protective gear. (Adult shinny players take note!)

And in hockey, as Carroll notes, most of the injuries occur as a result of a player's choice. "Hitting from behind continues to be the single greatest potential hazard in organized hockey," he says. "It tends to be more behavioural things that happen rather than unavoidable accidents." Remember to make sure your hockey players wear face guards as well as helmets: hockey incidents are the number one cause of sports-related eye injury. And all sports helmets must be discarded and replaced when they become cracked or damaged.