Air Jackets - who has one, why do we use them, are they worth it?

I don't care what people think about how the jacket was advertised using this photo but what this shows is that there is a fair percentage of rotational falls where the jacket would come into effect. At the end of the day I firmly believe that if Faith did not have the jacket on, she would be in a wheelchair or worse and I believe exactly the same thing with my own fall.

The original poster was asking for experiences and individual opinions about the air vest and safety, NOT their marketing strategy.
 
If I recall correctly Faith Cook posted here on HHO about that fall.
In that post she disputed claims that P2 had 'ambulance chased' her but said she had wanted to make a statement about the air jacket. She also said that both she & the doctors who treated her in the hospital believe the air jacket did prevent her injuries from being worse.
I'm going to see if I can find the post.
 
Here is the Faith Cook post from this forum:

"Seeing as I seem to pop up on this forum rather too ofter, I would just like to give my opinion.

Without my point 2 I would have almost certainly been paralysed, if not worse. I have seen 5 different consultants all of which have questioned how I am still walking, and the simple answer is...because of my air jacket. I brought it the evening before i went cross country at Bramham and it has been the best money we have ever spent. Because I landed straight on my head, nothing would have prevented me from the compressional fractures that occured, but it stabilised me from the minute I hit the deck, and consequently kept all 5 broken vertebrae in line. Without it, my spinal cord would have been seriously damaged because of the extent of the injuries and breaks to the bones.

I would also like to make clear that I was not in intensive care, or a high care ward at anytime in fact, and yes Lee did speak to me when I was in hospital, but it was actually because I wanted to thank him, and help promote the product in anyway I could because if it can help other riders like it did for me, then surely it's a good thing.

As someone who has experienced a serious fall, I really don't know how you can all be questioning this product. In my eyes, it's the best thing that's around at the moment-we all know the dangers in Eventing, but if it can make our sport safer then it definately gets a thumbs up from me. And yes, the top riders ARE still wearing them-I was up at Blair and Burghley helping friends and trust me...the majority were wearing one.

Anyway, it's up to the individual-if you don't want one, don't buy one. As soon as I get back in the saddle, I shall be wearing mine though.

Faith Cook"
 
TwoPair said:
CPTrayes it is best not to talk about things you don't know about. I am quite happy to PM you about the fall you and Kerilli are discussing. You are right, Faith is very lucky, but NOT for the reasons you state.
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I accept that no testing has proved that the jacket saved her further injury but likewise you have absolutely no evidence that it did not. I cannot understand why you are so adamant that her injuries would not have been worse without the jacket (or are you even suggesting that the jacket caused greater injuries???) when you have no evidence whatsoever that this is the case.

I am not talking about things I don't know about any more than you are, am I? Otherwise you would be able to state your case openly and you cannot because you know that the Fat Controller will remove it and ban you for it because you cannot substantiate your claims.

I don't want a PM - if you have evidence that these jackets are unsafe then spit it out. If you can't prove what you are saying and say it in public, then it's not worth hearing.

Start playing by the same rules that you accuse Point 2 of guys - either prove that you are right that these jackets cause injury or do us all a favour and stop implying it.

Even Faith does not agree with you for goodness sake and neither do trauma specialists who have posted on HHO previously.
 
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Wow if I thought that showing a photo would have caused such a fuss, I wouldn't have posted it.

Firstly there is no way you can have the so called 'proof' that everyone is after because at the end of the day, there is no possible way in this world that you can replicate two falls to be exactly the same, maybe Mythbusters would like to give it a go?

Kerilli, Rino etc - Like I said before, I don't care about the marketing, if I had a photo that no one had seen, of someone that no one knows, then maybe I might get my point across because everyone seems to be more hung up on the story behind the photo then the photo itself.

The first 5 pages of this thread is people stating that because you stay with the horse during a rotational fall then the jacket is useless. However, a lot of rotational falls actually spit the rider out the front and then the deadly part is where the horse lands on you when you are already on the ground. The rotational falls I have seen where the rider stays with the horse are about 50/50 deadly to ok. If you have a deadly rotational fall where the horse lands on you then even I would admit that the air vest would do nothing.

Typically though, when you have a rotational fall, you are generally heading towards the ground head first (now I am talking about the slow rotational falls, which a large amount are compared to the fast ones which can and do kill). This is where the air jacket would come into effect. Laws of physics, the neck is the weakest point with only muscle and tendon support. You put 50kg pressure on the neck plus pressure of speed then something is going to give. If there is something that can add support to a weak part of the body then obviously that is going to minimise lateral movement that damages the spinal cord.

If anyone is interested here in Australia there was recently some research done on the damages caused by rotational falls after we lost a number of riders. I can dig it up.
 
I am amused at how we have such a debate about some piece of equipment that may or not as the case may be, helped to prevent injury. Why if the manufacturers are so sure of their product they have not put it forward for detailed testing I know not.
The point I wish to make is everybody seems to forget the important role that BPs play in this equation and they are the only heavily tested piece of kit that justifiably you can say will save your life. Yet some people seem happy to ride when they can without a BP but will trust their well being to something that may prevent injury but will not operate in every scenario and particularly the ones were your life is seriously in danger.
 
I wear mine out hacking and cross country. Prefer it to a bp when hacking due to weight. Also, when I have fallen before I often found the professionally fitted bp digging into my hips... And having had the unfortunate experience of being dragged before I think it would protect my neck in that situation, too. I like the fact that it stabilises my head, neck and back all the way to coxlyx ... Keeps it straight so to speak. Luckily both my horses are gun proof as we have a shooting range close by soothe sound of it going off doesn't bother them at all.
 
On the subject of air jackets I haven't got one & have said to myself I'm not getting one until I'm eventing at a higher level, if I get one at all

However off on a tangent..... IMO (no real foundations to this) I'd like to see some info relating saddle type (ie flat without blocks vs deep seated with blocks) & see how that impacts how far riders are thrown..... For xc personally I favour the flattest seated saddles, because should anything go wrong I want to have a reasonable chance if getting thrown quickly away!

Just to throw something else in the mix! ;)
 
popsdosh said:
I am amused at how we have such a debate about some piece of equipment that may or not as the case may be, helped to prevent injury. Why if the manufacturers are so sure of their product they have not put it forward for detailed testing I know not.
The point I wish to make is everybody seems to forget the important role that BPs play in this equation and they are the only heavily tested piece of kit that justifiably you can say will save your life. Yet some people seem happy to ride when they can without a BP but will trust their well being to something that may prevent injury but will not operate in every scenario and particularly the ones were your life is seriously in danger.
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But popsdosh I won't wear a body protector hunting because of the sheer discomfort of having it on while gallopping and jumping at speed during intervals of a four hour ride. I am absolutely certain that it's a hell of a sight safer to wear an air jacket than nothing.

For me, and the people who hack and school in them for the same reason, the body protector research is irrelevant.

The answer on the testing is that the kind of testing you are asking for would require a budget in the high hundreds of thousands. The products already cost around the £400 mark becuase of the research and development fees that have to be recovered. It is safer to bring it to market without the testing you so desperately want than it is to price it even further out of the reach of ordinary riders.

So now can we please get real, get rid of the unsubstantiated insinuations that these jackets actually cause injuries or make injuries worse on deflation, that Point 2's MD went ambulance chasing, that Faith Cook would have been less hurt without it on in spite of the fact that her doctors are flabbergasted that she is walking and all the other nonsense that is being spouted; I get the impression mainly because the abrasive personality (I have personal experience) of a senior Point 2 person and the slightly misleading advertising he has been responsible for has rubbed a number of senior people connected with BE up the wrong way?

We aren't stupid. We use the jackets for a reason. We use them because they work for us in practice. Personally, I find falling off in one and feeling how it cushioned my fall and stabilised my neck a darned sight more convincing than anyone's arguments about lack of testing.
 
cptrayes said:
But popsdosh I won't wear a body protector hunting because of the sheer discomfort of having it on while gallopping and jumping at speed during intervals of a four hour ride.
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Then I think you're wearing the wrong bp. Some really are comfy enough that you can forget you have them on. A racesafe under your p2 would be far safer than no bp + p2... if only because the p2 might not go off in the event of a fall.

cptrayes said:
I am absolutely certain that it's a hell of a sight safer to wear an air jacket than nothing.
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Really? I'm not. Absolutely not.

cptrayes said:
For me, and the people who hack and school in them for the same reason, the body protector research is irrelevant.
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I would rather put my faith in a certified piece of PPE rather than an uncertified one. the PPE testing ensures that the bp cannot do any harm.

cptrayes said:
The answer on the testing is that the kind of testing you are asking for would require a budget in the high hundreds of thousands. The products already cost around the £400 mark becuase of the research and development fees that have to be recovered. It is safer to bring it to market without the testing you so desperately want than it is to price it even further out of the reach of ordinary riders.
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but for any other piece of PPE, before it can even be put on the market, that testing HAS to be done. certification MUST be in place. afaik the airjackets are still only certified for inflation times.
I have no idea of the cost of testing (would it really be that high?)
I wish the testing that has been done on them by BETA had been published.

cptrayes said:
So now can we please get real, get rid of the unsubstantiated insinuations that these jackets actually cause injuries or make injuries worse on deflation, that Point 2's MD went ambulance chasing, that Faith Cook would have been less hurt without it on in spite of the fact that her doctors are flabbergasted that she is walking and all the other nonsense that is being spouted; I get the impression mainly because the abrasive personality (I have personal experience) of a senior Point 2 person and the slightly misleading advertising he has been responsible for has rubbed a number of senior people connected with BE up the wrong way?
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If you fall and the airjacket doesn't go off, and you don't have a bp underneath it, could the metal plate under the canister, against your ribs, have the potential to do damage? i'm asking, not insinuating. it needs testing.
the comments aren't unsubstantiated. they came first hand from someone at the scene and involved.
the statements I made weren't about his 'abrasive personality', they were about the ridiculous claim that "NO horse would EVER be frightened by the noise of an airjacket going off." blanket statements like that around horses are always suspect imho!
"slightly misleading" - crikey, really? a little more than that i think.

cptrayes said:
We aren't stupid. We use the jackets for a reason. We use them because they work for us in practice. Personally, I find falling off in one and feeling how it cushioned my fall and stabilised my neck a darned sight more convincing than anyone's arguments about lack of testing.
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There's a very enlightening thread about them over on COTH. Some very experienced people there who know a LOT about PPE, testing, etc.
 
kerilli said:
Then I think you're wearing the wrong bp. Some really are comfy enough that you can forget you have them on. A racesafe under your p2 would be far safer than no bp + p2... if only because the p2 might not go off in the event of a fall.
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You wear what you want Kerrilli. I know my own body. I don't know how hard you work when you ride a horse for 15 minutes flat out over five foot hedges at speed but I sweat, and if I wore a close fitting body protector I would be drenched by the end of the first leg and have to sit in my own sweat and more of it on each subsequent leg for up to another three and a half hours.

kerilli said:
Really? I'm not. Absolutely not.
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Yes, really, like all the other thousands and thousands of people who are wearing them, and quite unlike a tiny, tiny minority of unfortunately quite voiciferous people on this forum who have no evidence whatsoever that they are unsafe that will hold up under public gaze without legal challenge, or they would publish it.

kerilli said:
I would rather put my faith in a certified piece of PPE rather than an uncertified one. the PPE testing ensures that the bp cannot do any harm.
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So would I. Would you like to pay for it, because no-one else is going to? And while the testing is not in existence I am prepared to trust my own brain and that of my Chartered Engineer (not washing machine repair men) partner and brothers and multiple trauma specialists that the air bag is much safer than me wearing nothing.

kerilli said:
but for any other piece of PPE, before it can even be put on the market, that testing HAS to be done. certification MUST be in place. afaik the airjackets are still only certified for inflation times.
I have no idea of the cost of testing (would it really be that high?)
I wish the testing that has been done on them by BETA had been published.
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so do I, but having seen it and used it and seen the opinon of mutliple trauma specialists, Faith Cook's and two others who posted on another thread, I am gobsmacked that we still have people like you on here insinuating, as you have so carefully and legally done in the quote above, that these air jackets are unsafe and can cause injury.

And I know that you can't see the similarity between horse riding falls and bike riding falls when I can, but very similar products have been extensively tested in Japan for motorcycle riders and they are worn by the Japanese Police Force. That's good enough for me as well.


kerilli said:
If you fall and the airjacket doesn't go off, and you don't have a bp underneath it, could the metal plate under the canister, against your ribs, have the potential to do damage? i'm asking, not insinuating. it needs testing.
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It doesn't need testing !!! Frankly it's perfectly bl**dy OBVIOUS that if you fall onto the cylinder or the plate without the airbag inflated that it's going to cause you damage without a BP. I'm not an idiot, though people who need testing to take place for that question to have an answer must be.

Life is not without risk and never will be. On balance of probabilities I am convinced that I am much safer in the jacket than without it and so are all the people who wear one, with and without a standard BP. Yes, really, we do think that.


kerilli said:
the comments aren't unsubstantiated. they came first hand from someone at the scene and involved.
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Oh that's OK then. Faith who was wearing it thinks she is walking because of it. Multiple doctors, experts in her type of injury, think she is walking because of it. But one first hand report of a blink of the eye incident who was either a fence official, or a paramedic or a course official of some kind who turned up after the fall, says that the jacket caused injury?

Don't make me laugh!


kerilli said:
"slightly misleading" - crikey, really? a little more than that i think.
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The mistakes were immaterial to the actual safety of the jacket and my own belief is that people have been made safer by wearing them. So claims that other companies have not tested are immaterial except to the sales of the other brand and bear no relationship to the safety issues. Claims that people walked away uninjured bear no relationship to the safety issues and in the context of safety unless you can produce hard evidence that the jackets are unsafe in a way that makes them more likely to cause injury than to prevent it, then the advertising has done more good than harm to riders.

kerilli said:
There's a very enlightening thread about them over on COTH. Some very experienced people there who know a LOT about PPE, testing, etc.
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I don't give a fig about the testing. I wear one, like the thousands of other people wearing them and falling off in them, because I am safer in one. If I didn't have one, Faith Cook's quoted post above would have me running to the shops for one tomorrow morning.
 
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cptrayes said:
Claims that people walked away uninjured bear no relationship to the safety issues and in the context of safety unless you can produce hard evidence that the jackets are unsafe in a way that makes them more likely to cause injury than to prevent it, then the advertising has done more good than harm to riders.
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I know very little about point 2s or air jackets generally. However, last time I checked, the onus was on the manufacturer to prove the benefit of their product, not the rest of the world to prove it doesn't work :D

Just imagine how much cheaper it would be to get a pharmaceutical to market if you could sell it while you wait till someone else proved it doesn't work :cool:
 
JFTD said:
I know very little about point 2s or air jackets generally. However, last time I checked, the onus was on the manufacturer to prove the benefit of their product, not the rest of the world to prove it doesn't work :D

Just imagine how much cheaper it would be to get a pharmaceutical to market if you could sell it while you wait till someone else proved it doesn't work :cool:
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I completely agree, but if people are going to claim that airbag jackets do not work, that they cause damage, then they must substantiate their claims. In the face of warnings from The Fat Controller the statements which have been made on other threads have been modified and are now at least legal, but the careful insinuations remain that the products are unsafe.
 
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kerilli said:
but for any other piece of PPE, before it can even be put on the market, that testing HAS to be done. certification MUST be in place. afaik the airjackets are still only certified for inflation times.
.
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Correct in its detail but misleading in its message.

Current Point Two website:


ProAir Safety

The Point Two ProAir air vest works in three ways — to distribute pressure, absorb shock and support the spinal column in the event of a rider fall.

The CE-marked ProAir has been extensively assessed and evaluated at leading test facilities including the Transport Research Laboratory and SATRA Technology Centre, in the UK, and CRITT Sport Loisirs in France.

To earn that CE 89/686/EEC certification, the ProAir had to achieve the exacting standards required for a horse riding inflatable item under European Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) legislation. This included laboratory assessments of the speed of inflation, the time taken for the airbags to reach a level of inflation capable of providing adequate protection and energy dissipation — as well as crucial testing that the jacket does not feature any materials or components that could prove harmful to the health of the wearer.

Point Two also carried out its own, independent testing on the jacket’s performance.

The Transport Research Laboratory reported the following observations while testing the ProAir performance in two impact scenarios during April 2010:

* When used with a BETA level 3 body protector, the ProAir jacket improves protection to the spine by up to 69%
* The ProAir jacket provides approximately 45% more protection for the lower spine than a BETA level 3 body protector alone
* Used with or without a BETA level 3 body protector, the ProAir jacket reduced the risk of rib fractures and underlying organ damage, by as much as 20%

Point Two recommends that the ProAir is worn with a traditional body protector (such as the Hows Racesafe 2010) for optimum protection. But it can be worn alone — and very often is by riders schooling, hacking and breaking horses at home.
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CPTrayes there is a reason I'm not willing to post publicly, and it is NOT because I don't have belief in what I'm saying. To be honest, I don't think I will tell you in a private message because I have no belief that it would stay just that - private. Which is WHY I offered to PM, because of the nature I don't WANT all and sundry to know and/or read it.
 
Golly this thread got exciting!
I have one, I wear it xc. I'm not doing high level (max PN, so 1.05) but I have a big horse and I don't fall often, but when I fall I fall hard. I tend to only wear it competing, which is probably silly, should wear it schooling too. I have rheumatoid arthritis pretty bad, so anything that is going to offer a bit more protection makes me happy.
That said, I hunt in a tipperary bp under my jacket, and don't wear my P2.
I don't wear either to hack or showjump (should probably wear start showjumping in the bp or both though...)
 
TwoPair said:
CPTrayes there is a reason I'm not willing to post publicly, and it is NOT because I don't have belief in what I'm saying. To be honest, I don't think I will tell you in a private message because I have no belief that it would stay just that - private. Which is WHY I offered to PM, because of the nature I don't WANT all and sundry to know and/or read it.
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I think that you can't post it because you can't prove it, otherwise you would. If you can't post it I'm sorry I don't think it's worth reading one personal anecdote. I'm sure you believe utterly in what you are saying, but as a user why you seem to believe that on balance the jackets do more harm than good defeats me.
 
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