Army and NFL – Reducing Head Injuries

Head Injuries, (CBS)…Kimberly Dozier, June 9, 2008 , 6:30 PM

Now to a health concern involving American troops in Iraq. Head injuries from roadside bombs are among the biggest threats to frontline soldiers. But Pentagon officials may have found a better way to provide protection. Technology used on the football field could soon be adapted for the battlefield.

It was one of those eureka moments. Army doctors home from Iraq and Afghanistan were watching NFL players pound it out and thought, that’s what our soldiers need, helmets like that. Because believe it or not, the effects on the brain of this can be a lot like this – blasts strong enough to shake and even bruise the brain often leading to traumatic brain injury known as TBI. Today an estimated 30 percent of troops who’ve served in combat suffer from TBI after repeated exposures to blasts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The army has sent out a call to NFL helmet makers like Riddell telling them apply their technology to combat helmets and we’ll buy hundreds of thousands of them.

They’ve done it before. Founder John Riddell invented World War II’s classic web suspension helmet. A different war means different challenges.

We’re looking for a pad system that is compatible with the advanced combat helmet. We’re looking for pads that can meet our requirements of sustaining blunt trauma at 10 feet per second.