Public Commons

Part of PFR Management view on Helmets

Background info:

Jutta's letter re: Helmet Policy to General Manager, Jim Hart

Response by Jim Hart to Jutta's letter above

Manager Seow writes on behalf of Jim Hart in response to helmet letter by Jutta

Jutta Mason juttamason@gmail.com

Mar 3

to klseow, eafriat, latkins, mnativi, sceolin Hello Kelvin,

I finally had a chance to read the documents you sent me relating to helmets. There is a lot of very interesting stuff there. But before we get into any details, I need to pin down two references in your Attachment #8:

• Please send me the author(s), article title(s) and link(s) to this study or studies, cited in your point (1): Studies have shown that ice skating produces 3X more head injury and brain injury than cycling, skateboarding or inline skating.

• Please send me the title and link to this survey cited in (7): A new research reported by Dr. Angela Colantonio for the Ontario Neurotrauma Foundation.

Also, I had trouble with your "Web Links on Helmet Research" document. Many of the links don't seem to work. I've attached the document, annotated (in red) to show which links gave me trouble. Any ideas on how they could be fixed?

Kelvin Seow

Mar 7

to me, Esther, Laura, Ana, Sandra Jutta, thank you for your response. Staff have sent me the links that you have specifically mentioned in your response.

Posted On: December 20, 2009 by John McKiggan, Mandatory Helmets for Recreational Ice Skaters: Brain Injury Prevention http://www.halifaxpersonalinjurylawyerblog.com/2009/12/mandatory_helmets_for_recreati.html http://biac-aclc.ca/2009/12/17/a-head-of-the-pack/

March 19, 2009 12:40 PM- General- Surveys- Healthcare Facility Nothing minor about brain injury - New study shows thousands of Ontarians suffer brain injuries each year http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/398603/nothing-minor-about-brain-injury-new-study-shows-thousands-of-ontarians-suffer-brain-injuries-each-year The research for the original policy was completed many years ago. Some of those links were useful in the past but may currently be not functioning. However, staff update information and research on an ongoing basis. Sandra Ceolin Celestini is our staff member that updates this information for our skating team. I have asked her to share with you the new research that she is collecting including current links.

____

Jutta Mason juttamason@gmail.com

Mar 17 (8 days ago)

to jromoff, Kelvin, Esther, Laura, Ana, Sandra Hello Kelvin,

Response to your follow-up letter:

So, the first link you sent me is essentially a brain-injury-lawyer ad on a commercial website. Such sources are not normally used as references for policies.

The second link you sent is to a newswire story that cites a survey led by Toronto occupational therapy research scientist Angela Colantonio. Sadly, the actual article -- which is what we need here, yes? -- is not cited nor have I been able to track it through google. I've now written to the Ontario Neurotrauma Research Foundation to try and get the actual study from them.

Re the broken links in the bibliography that backs the PFR helmets policy: out of a total of 19 items, 14 of the links were broken and 3 more were just general links to home pages of organizations, e.g. Parachute. With respect, that level of work for a bibliography would not earn a passing grade in a high school essay. Better scuttle that list.

I have not yet received an updated version, mentioned by you, of supporting materials gathered in the intervening years by Sandra or others.

Re the unaddressed issues in your own letter of response, please see my question in red, below: - re the fact that PFR only intermittently been able to enforce its helmet policy in many of the outdoor rinks -- e.g. Greenwood, Harry Gairey, Ramsden, Dufferin, Trinity, Monarch, Wallace, Regent, Kew...etc. -- Here is an excerpt from a recent communication I got from the City of Ottawa: "a) only about half of the City’s community-based 258 outdoor rink site operations offer supervised skating hours; b) as part of our helmet use review, we received advice from our corporate risk management group that we shouldn’t mandate helmet use if we were not in a position to enforce the mandatory use of helmets."

So they don't mandate it for their outdoor rinks, only recommend. Here is my question:

Has PFR got confirmation from the city's legal department, that the mandatory helmet policy, which is far from 100% enforced, does NOT put the city at increased risk of claims?

I'll await your answer before I update the remaining helmet material on cityrinks.ca.

Laura Atkins

Mar 18 (7 days ago)

to Tanya, me, Kelvin, Esther, Janie, Ana, Sandra Did we really send outdated, broken links to Jutta?

I think we need to stick to the fact that organizations like skate canada mandate helmet use in all their programs, yes we've checked with legal (insert wording from legal and or risk), thank you for your letter.

---

Jutta Mason juttamason@gmail.com

Mar 19 (6 days ago)

to Laura, Kelvin, Esther, Janie, Ana, Sandra, Tanya Hello Laura,

yes, "inserting the wording from legal or risk" will be helpful, especially because Jim Kidd from Risk said something rather different to us about 10 years ago. I guess he's retired by now....

I'm guessing you didn't mean to include me on that e-mail, but there are no surprises in it anyway -- it accurately reflects the current PFR corporate culture.