An innovative football helmet was developed to protect football players from concussions, media reported Sunday.
Vin Ferrara, a former Harvard quarterback, got the idea when he happened to notice the construction of a ribbed, plastic bottle that squirted a saline solution into the sinuses. He started pounding the bottle and found it absorbed blows from all directions and different forces with equal effectiveness.
"This is it," Ferrara declared. Three years later, his squirt bottle has led to a promising new technology to protect football players from concussions.
Rather than being lined with rows of traditional foam or urethane, this new helmet, developed by Ferrara's company -- Xenith LLC, contains 18 black, thermoplastic shock absorbers filled with air that can accept a wide range of forces and still moderate the sudden jarring of the head that causes concussion.
Laboratory impact tests have proved Ferraras theory, with the new helmet absorbing hundreds of impacts without any degradation.
This design breakthrough has real medical significance because studies have found that 10 to 50 percent of high school players each season sustain concussions, whose effects can range from persistent memory problems and depression to coma and death.
Earlier this month, the helmet passed certification tests conducted by the National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment, which certifies helmet models worn by each of the more than 2 million football players in the United States, from pee-wees to professionals.
The helmet has not yet been tested by actual players under game conditions and the price will be approximately 350 U.S. dollars, more than twice the cost of existing headgear.
Dr. Robert Cantu of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, who advised Ferarra during the development of the helmet, was quoted by media reports as saying "the greatest advance in helmet design in at least 30 years."
But experts suspect that Ferrara, who sustained several concussions as a player himself, has developed a radically effective design.
An NFL spokesman said that the league was aware of Ferrara's helmet design but had not reviewed it enough to comment on it.
Source:Xinhua/agencies
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