Having written on this subject in another thread, I wanted to add to, and totally agree with Karl.

The rediculousness of the WDC request extends a bit farther. Let me explain:

In the worst-case-senario (Motor Vehicle Incident/pedistrian struck/assault)...a classification called "Major Trauma", on arrival to the Trauma Center, the evaluation of the injury(s) begins from scratch. All radiology studies/blood testing is done to see exactly "what is the patient condition at THIS PARTICULAR MOMENT IN TIME". Type and cross matching is done, as has been said before, with the blood of the patient drawn by that facility's staff at that moment in time at that facility. Here is the extra concept:

Tetanus is given where needed if no record of innoculation exists.

My point? Nothing at the Trauma Center is based on the existance of ANY information on the helmut...even the identification of the patient, ie. his name. If there is not photo ID, or visiual ID by a person known to the patient, he will be registered as "Jane/John Doe".

The only relevance the helmut has the patient is to indicate the forces that were applied to the head in the event.

Information on the helmut is only valuable, in reality, to the personnel at the track. Since blood testing/typing and tetanus (which can be givin anytime within 72 hours) are not done at trackside, it would seem that the concepts at WDC are truely superfluous, and wasteful of money and resources.

Here is a Valuable Concept: If anyone has a medical condition of GREAT importance, or medication allergy (Latex, for examble), it would behoove you to get a MedAlert necklace/bracelet and wear it. It will have great weight with Medical Professionals in this situation. Helmut information will not.

I have 18 years working at a Level One Trauma Center Emergency Room, and draw my conclusions from those experiences.

I'm always wondering what the clubs do with the money given to them for their event, and then come up with such lame rules of the game. They have greater access to resources than the common person in the street to answer the bigger questions.

Pardon the bad spelling...too tired to get the dictionary after working all night in the ER.

Good racing.

Bill Frieder R.N. BSN
Buffalo, New York