Is this the one where the fold your face down to reconstruct the bones?
That's the one, not sure if they fold down or pull the scalp back, never seen it done and patients never remember. I also have no idea how they pull the bones back out flush with the skull?
That is a serious conclusion jump!
How do you know that that the helmet helped? Let alone that it helped enough to prevent a fatal head injury?
I wouldn't be bothered for most people here, buy you MWI, are usually pretty careful about solid conclusions on very limited data. The clear and obvious possibility, given the damage to the helmet, is the vents if they break laterally, can concentrate the load on a single point (the remaining largest body of polystyrene remaining) - fracture seems to be aligned with the frontal edge of the helmet.
Indeed it is a massive conclusion jump. My supervisor specialises in head trauma - concussions, skull fractures and death are his thing as well as TBI trauma research out of several hospitals, he's also a keen cyclist. I've reviewed a lot of his work, sciency methodology practice for me, free proof reading for him, a fractured skull with a helmet, generally (but obviously not always) will be catastrophic without one. None of the cycling based patients in the TBI clinic where helmet less, those ones died on the side of a road sadly or in intensive care later on.
But like I said, if your going to fracture a skull, frontal sinus is by far the best place to do it as it has a built in crush zone much like a helmet, hence maybe the helmet made no difference.
Yeah, I had three options…
Within 6 days… do an incision over the sinus and pull the dent… or an ear to ear peel my face off, pull the dent, then put my face back on.
Or just leave it.
I chose the later.
If surgery isn't a must, probably a good decision to avoid, patients seem to take a long time to fully recover from it, lots of headaches, memory issues, concentration that sort of thing... although may be related to concussion or anesthesia?