M. Schumacher’s Ski Accident Brain Injury Said to Be Caused by his GoPro Helmet Cam

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Watch out for your GoPro?


Michael Schumacher's Ski Accident Brain Injury Said to Be Caused by his GoPro Helmet Cam





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Formula 1 racing legend Michael Schumacher is still making his slow recovery from a serious skiing accident he suffered on December 29th, 2013. While skiing through an unsecured area in the French Alps, Schumacher crashed and slammed his head into a rock.
Doctors credit his helmet with saving his life, saying he likely would have died had he not been wearing one. But this weekend a new fact emerged: the GoPro mounted to his helmet is reportedly what caused the brain damage.

The claim was made by French journalist Jean-Louis Moncet who, after speaking to Schumacher's son (who was on that skiing trip), went on a radio show and stated that, "The problem for Michael was not the hit, but the mounting of the GoPro camera that he had on his helmet that injured his brain."
Schumacher still cannot walk or talk, and is rehabilitating with $185,000-per-month care at his home by Lake Geneva. Moncet quotes the son is saying that the driver is "waking up very slowly; very slowly." Doctors do not yet know how much recovery Schumacher will be able to make.





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One helmet mount, offered by GoPro
It is unknown what helmet and mount Schumacher was wearing at the time of the accident and why exactly the mounted camera increased the injury. [Update: See below]
(via Metro)

Update: Reader Michael Nemetz points out that investigators were looking into whether or not the helmet cam was at fault not long after the accident. The Telegraph writes,
Experts from ENSA, the world-renowned ski and climbing academy in the French ski resort of Chamonix, have conducted tests to determine whether the presence of a solid object between a helmet colliding with a rock would weaken the structure. [...]
"The helmet completely broke. It was in at least two parts. ENSA analysed the piece of the helmet to check the material, and all was OK," said a source close to the investigation. "But why did it explode on impact? Here the camera comes into question. The laboratory has been testing to see if the camera weakened the structure."
If Moncet is correct, then researchers in this case reached some conclusions that place blame on the helmet camera and mount.

Image credits: Header photos by Drew Stephens and Chris J. Moffett, product photo by GoPro



 
I've sometimes wondered about this, basically you are carrying around your own badly placed 'rock' to headbutt if you fall off, not sensible really.
I myself have always used a chest harness, which again is not entirely safe, but less likely to cause a life threatening injury (I guess). A chest harness is also a more stable 'platform' to shoot video I reckon (as opposed to a head).
 
I've sometimes wondered about this, basically you are carrying around your own badly placed 'rock' to headbutt if you fall off, not sensible really.
I myself have always used a chest harness, which again is not entirely safe, but less likely to cause a life threatening injury (I guess). A chest harness is also a more stable 'platform' to shoot video I reckon (as opposed to a head).

I starting shooting with a GP Chesty mount this month. I prefer the POV it provides. The shot includes the handlebars and gives a better sense of what the rider sees when steering the bike. Helmet mounted shots move every time you turn to look at something, which is often what you don't want. I still use the selfie helmet mount but only occasionally to add variety to the shots.
 
I used my go-pro with a "chesty" mount - no roost shield. I had an accident and hit a tree and the go-pro broke my ribs.

Would probably have been fine with a roost shield. I now prefer it on my helmet, mounted at the side.

Luck of the draw really...
 
I used my go-pro with a "chesty" mount - no roost shield. I had an accident and hit a tree and the go-pro broke my ribs.

Would probably have been fine with a roost shield. I now prefer it on my helmet, mounted at the side.

Luck of the draw really...

Yeah that sounds nasty :?

Both my Spidi riding jackets take the chest and back protectors, which I always wear. I nearly always use the Multitech jacket as it's the cooler of the two. Like you say, the luck of the draw.

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Worth noting that you can get a chest mount adapter that allows you to mount any digital camera for shooting video. I actually use an old Sony HX9V rather than a Gopro, it has various advantages and disadvantages but the video quality (as on most modern 'still' cameras) is very very good and the metal body is very robust, best thing of all is that an old but working HX9V/10V can be had for around £60 on Ebay etc.
Takes good stills too.
 
Doesn't the side helmet mount allow small branches & vines to get caught between the camera & helmet? Midnitemapper is using one of the new Garmin video camera's & highly rates it. I know nothing about it but will take a look. I think he's mounting it on his bars.





http://sites.garmin.com/en-US/virb/





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I used my go-pro with a "chesty" mount - no roost shield. I had an accident and hit a tree and the go-pro broke my ribs.

Would probably have been fine with a roost shield. I now prefer it on my helmet, mounted at the side.

Luck of the draw really...
 
Wow, I 'm going to be wearing a chest protector in future, good call chaps.
 
Doesn't the side helmet mount allow small branches & vines to get caught between the camera & helmet? Midnitemapper is using one of the new Garmin video camera's & highly rates it. I know nothing about it but will take a look. I think he's mounting it on his bars.





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Yes Don uses this camera and rates it.

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I rarely use my Go-Pro anymore. Just seems like too much effort and then the editing takes ages.

When mounted on the side of the helmet it does sometimes get tangled in trees, vines, etc.. I've not tried mounting it on the bike but would imagine the vibration wound be an issue. Might give it a try.
 
Totally agree about the effort and editing time involved, for the end product. When most people's attention span is 2 minutes for video, I cant get enthusiastic about doing it. Keld's got a great riding YouTube Channel that gets lots of hits, I think the analysis he did of his traffic was most people's attention span was less than 3 minutes.



I rarely use my Go-Pro anymore. Just seems like too much effort and then the editing takes ages.

When mounted on the side of the helmet it does sometimes get tangled in trees, vines, etc.. I've not tried mounting it on the bike but would imagine the vibration wound be an issue. Might give it a try.
 
Yeah, it's somewhere in the 2-3 minute mark on average.
That said, I know a lot watch the entire videos and some just a few secs maybe, getting turned off by my voice or something LOL, but the analytics on the page says it's in the 2-3 minute mark.
But if your are trying to make interesting content, then it's hard to actually convey anything within a couple of minutes unless you're a pro filmmaker. I just do this for fun.
It might take me an afternoon to go through a couple of days footage, but a trick I've learned is if and when something interesting happens, I wait maybe 10 secs after and then stop the recording and start it again, then I know when I get to the reviewing footage part, that I should just skip to the last part of every clip and see what it was and if it's worthy of further editing and inclusion.
And I use the free GoPro Studio editing software and it works out ok for now.
 
Yeah, it's somewhere in the 2-3 minute mark on average.
That said, I know a lot watch the entire videos and some just a few secs maybe, getting turned off by my voice or something LOL, but the analytics on the page says it's in the 2-3 minute mark.
But if your are trying to make interesting content, then it's hard to actually convey anything within a couple of minutes unless you're a pro filmmaker. I just do this for fun.
It might take me an afternoon to go through a couple of days footage, but a trick I've learned is if and when something interesting happens, I wait maybe 10 secs after and then stop the recording and start it again, then I know when I get to the reviewing footage part, that I should just skip to the last part of every clip and see what it was and if it's worthy of further editing and inclusion.
And I use the free GoPro Studio editing software and it works out ok for now.

The GoPro templates do speed up a lot of the time and effort required in editing video. I'll start to experiment with adding different music to the templates soon to see if they still look effective even if the transitions don't match up with the new soundtrack.

The new Hero 4 has a tagging button to help you locate the interesting parts of a longer take. Could be a really useful new feature.
 
I've only used the templates once and that was for a family vacation video, never for my bike related channel. Not really into doing music videos. They are kinda boring in my view.
 
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