# Broken Collarbone with Leatte Neck Brace



## Ronny Grady (Sep 14, 2003)

Anyone here ever break a collarbone during a crash while wearing a Leatte brace? I did.

The crash didn't seem that bad, but the brace focused the force on my collarbone and snap. 

That or it saved my neck and I should be happy I can still walk.

Any thoughts?


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## zebrahum (Jun 29, 2005)

You'll never know the answer. You'll go back and forth thinking what if, but that won't answer any questions. Just try and focus on the fact that all that impact force that broke your collarbone didn't go into breaking your neck and do what you need to do to heal up fast.


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## drastic. (Nov 22, 2010)

Time to get an atlas neckbrace and ditch the poor designed Leatte. You are the 4th mtn bike incident (not including the few incidents I have seen on mx forums I post on) that incurred a collar bone break. And one of my mx buddies broke his back right where the spinal piece that comes down ends. He is now paralyzed from the arms down and in a wheel chair.

The Leatte is a good design in nature, but it puts the force down on a weak part of your body. Saves your neck, breaks your collarbone (as well shifting the force further down your spine). The Atlas helps prevent both.


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## DOCRIGID (Sep 16, 2009)

thanks drastic! those braces look awesome! I like the rational behind their design.


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## myarmisonfire (Mar 28, 2005)

I have to agree with zebrahum that you will never know. One thing that you do know is that breaking a collar bone is really of little significance in the greater scheme of injuries. Breaking your neck will most likely change your life a great deal. It is virtually impossible to die from a broken collar bone but a broken neck has a good chance of death or paralysis.
Looking at it from another perspective:If you had a concussion from crashing with your helmet on would you question if your helmet caused the concussion even though it *may* have prevented massive skull trauma?


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## aedubber (Apr 17, 2011)

Hey thank god thats all it was that happened , i got lucky myself and had no neck brace at all but suffer with 3 fractures now :/ .. Anyways , heal up quick and stay positive!


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## tyler555g (Mar 2, 2015)

drastic. said:


> Time to get an atlas neckbrace and ditch the poor designed Leatte. You are the 4th mtn bike incident (not including the few incidents I have seen on mx forums I post on) that incurred a collar bone break. And one of my mx buddies broke his back right where the spinal piece that comes down ends. He is now paralyzed from the arms down and in a wheel chair.
> 
> The Leatte is a good design in nature, but it puts the force down on a weak part of your body. Saves your neck, breaks your collarbone (as well shifting the force further down your spine). The Atlas helps prevent both.


I broke my collarbone with an atlas on, so that's not always the case. That said, I think about all the force that would have been on my neck, and I kinda think I would rather have a broken collarbone than a broken neck.


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## NWS (Jun 30, 2010)

If you fall hard enough to break something, then something will break. Neck braces, like wrist braces, don't change that. 

Collarbones heal. I broke mine without a neck brace. 

Spines don't usually heal too well.


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## Procter (Feb 3, 2012)

Interesting thought ronny. I broke my clavicle last year and was wearing a leatt. Like you, it felt like a relatively routine crash, I wasn't landing anything, although it was at a high speed (22 mph?). 


I never thought about the possibility of the brace contributing to the break until now. But let's think about the physics:

Most mountain biking collarbone breaks are probably the result hitting the collarbone directly on the ground, yielding a force which is diagonal and downwards, i.e. draw a line from the end of the collarbone towards the heart. This is because we don't drop out of the sky flat on our side, there's almost always a component of forward motion as the rider goes down. 

Now, the only way I can think of that the brace would increase the force on the collarbone in this situation, would be if the head is moving down towards the ground, which makes the helmet push on the brace, and the brace then pushes on the trapezius. So, does that translate to more force on the collarbone? In the downward direction towards the heart? To me, it seems like no, I feel like the shoulder blade takes up that force, not the collarbone.

Either way, in my crash I distinctly remember my helmet hitting my brace, and only a very small hit to my helmet as it impacted the ground, and I had no neck issues and no concussion from my crash. So I'm a firm believer, and I agree with others that I'd prefer a clavicle break to the alternative.


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## bing! (Jul 8, 2010)

if your shoulder hits the ground, your collar bone can break due to compression of your body. leatt or no leatt. I've broken my collar bone, amongst others. 

did you just hit your head?


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## chup29 (Nov 28, 2006)

crashed at 35mph overshooting a large jump - landed straight on my head - blew up my helmet, snapped my leatt. Only broke my collarbone but did crumple into the ground head/shoulder first. Wear what makes you feel safe and i feel completely safe and secure in my leatt. Stuff happens and it always will happen and as far as i can tell, neck braces have helped me out personally quite a bit - ive broken 3 leatts over 7ish years and have only ever broken a collarbone (and a few concussions) - stop *****ing about the collarbone thing, if you weren't wearing a neck brace of some sort - you might be drooling, staring at the floor while somebody else wipes your ass for you.


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## Uphill=sad (Dec 8, 2011)

chup29 said:


> Stuff happens and it always will happen and as far as i can tell, neck braces have helped me out personally quite a bit - ive broken 3 leatts over 7ish years and have only ever broken a collarbone (and a few concussions) - stop *****ing about the collarbone thing, if you weren't wearing a neck brace of some sort - you might be drooling, staring at the floor while somebody else wipes your ass for you.


Bit of scare mongering here!

You may think that the leatt has helped you multiple times, and while neck fractures can be catastrophic, statistically neck fractures are extremely rare in MTB. I would suggest a reflection of your behavior whist riding, lets presume that the leatt has saved you multiple times, one crash sooner or later it won't. there has been a number of documented cases of neck fractures in leatts and anecdotally those fractures appear to be more severe.

You are experiencing a placebo type effect in which you feel the leatt has prevented multiple neck fractures, when logically or statistically it hasn't, it also may or may not have anything to do with the clavicle fractures, the most common 'serious' injury in MTB, logically a neck brace may lead to more clavicle fractures, but there isn't any evidence to support this. I've been hit before on a motorbike, I was thrown headfirst into a parked car, no neck injury, I was not wearing a neck brace, but had a shattered femur, sometime trauma and accidents dont make sense.

Less that 1% of serious injuries that require hospitalization are neck / spine related, of those over a 10 year period in north America trauma hospital that services bike park catchment areas. 63 people in 10 years with spinal injuries, half needed surgery, 4 patients became paraplegics and 8 quadriplegics. Just over 1 person per year, compare that to horse riding or field sports and it's insignificant from a statistically point of view... but still horrendous from a personal view.

Mountain biking injuries requiring trauma center admission: a 10-year regional trauma system experience. - PubMed - NCBI

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is much more common with 11% of serious injuries relating to this at whistler, less than <.05% is neck related or 4.7% for spine overall. Traumatic brain injury, which concussion is the little brother of, can be as bad if not worse than neck fractures, once you damage your cognition, you won't even know your a drooling mess. Does a neck brace lead to higher incidence of TBI, perhaps (?) because you have more force being transferred and absorbed in the cranium. Is there evidence for this? not as far as I am aware.

The epidemiology of mountain bike park injuries at the Whistler Bike Park, British Columbia (BC), Canada. - PubMed - NCBI

Does a neck brace prevent neck injuries? probably not, there are many cases of neck fractures whilst people are wearing them, does it cause clavicle fracture? probably not, they occur with or without neck braces.

TL/DR

Will I fracture my neck whilst riding? extremely unlikely, although your behavior and risk aversion will determine that likelihood more than any other metric. Should you wear a neck brace? that's entirely up to you, but understand people do break their necks with or without one (clavicles too) and the evidence that they actually work is currently non-existent. I don't wear one and my daily job is working with people with TBI, neck fractures and other traumatic injuries, so I see the consequences everyday I work.

Sorry for the wordy post in the DH forum, I presume not many will read it as they already know better :nono:, I am sadly amused by the amount of fear mongering around this topic.


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## NWS (Jun 30, 2010)

Well, sh!t. I wanted to believe that braces work.

It would be interesting to see a more recent version of that second study, to see if neck injuries have declined at all relative to the others. Still wouldn't be conclusive but that's the only hint I can imagine we'd get without a questionnaire for every bike park visitor.


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## Uphill=sad (Dec 8, 2011)

NWS said:


> It would be interesting to see a more recent version of that second study, to see if neck injuries have declined at all relative to the others..


I'd also love to see that, something may be published sooner or later.

I noticed that injury rates have increased significantly in the 10 year study, would be great to contrast to today's data, have more capable bikes lead to less injuries, more or made no difference.

I would be surprised if we are having more injuries today, once the number of riders have been taken into account as the average AM bike is significantly more capable than DH bikes of old, we may be crashing no more often but harder resulting in more trauma?


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## Procter (Feb 3, 2012)

Hey uphill, good post, and thanks for sharing real data. Will read up on these.

In the crash where I broke my clavicle, my neck brace definitively prevented a concussion: I hit the ground directly on my side (shoulder first), my head was headed towards the ground as well, but was slowed by my brace, resulting in a very minor ding on the helmet and no concussion symptoms. Had the neck brace not been there, my head would have hit the ground with full velocity.

There could be scenarios where the opposite is true, however.

The whistler article can be found in full text here:
http://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(12)00015-4/fulltext

And this blog claims the total visits to whistler is 120k/year, which means approx 7 injuries (major enough to make the study) per 1000 visits. Not bad. But the TBI number is concerning.

http://adventureriskreport.blogspot.com/2013/08/what-to-make-of-whistler-bike-park.html?m=1


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## Uphill=sad (Dec 8, 2011)

For those that enjoy statistics, even if the results are dismal;

Another good article here, Spinal column and spinal cord injuries in mountain bikers: a 13-year review. There is a fair bit of overlap in this paper and the 2012 paper from above, but this paper has a really nice discussion on potential reasons why people are crashing hard enough to break their necks.

Spinal column and spinal cord injuries in mountain bikers: a 13-year review. - PubMed - NCBI

Tl?DR version

Data from 107 cases (102m / 5f)
40% had spinal cord injuries vs vertebral column only (45 people)
42% of this with spinal injuries, life is now dramatically changed (19 people)
62% of all inclusive required surgery
4% wearing body armor! no mention of neck braces (probably weren't around in this period), seeing current data to compare to might suggest if they work or not?

_The mean risk of spine injury from mountain biking over this 13-year period was 0.20 per 100000 British Columbia residents (range, 0 to 0.37 per 100000)_

Basically a 1 / 500000 chance, although this does not account for riding hours, potentially a more important metric, although statistically much harder to determine accurately.

_It appears that the risk of spine injury due to mountain biking was greatest in 2001, at 0.37 per 100000, and that the risk has plateaued or possibly dropped off over the subsequent 6 years._

Who is likely to have a neck / spine fracture?

Males, mean age of the patients at time of injury was 32.7 years, although 14-70 year old have fracture necks in MTB.

(26.9%) were in professional or executive positions, 
(15.4%) were full-time students at the time of injury.
(30.8%) were craftsmen or worked in labor, transport, or agriculture; (16.3%) worked in service or sales industries;
(7.7%) worked as technicians.
(1.9%) were professional mountain bikers

(52.3%) were single at the time of injury,
(40.2%) were married or in common law relationships.
(3.7%) were separated or divorced at the time of injury,

(75.7%) sustained their injury with an "OTB = over the bars"
(91.0%) sustained direct impact primarily to their heads,
(9.3%), direct collision was with a tree.
(85.6%) were wearing a helmet at the time of injury
(14.4%) were not wearing a helmet. (silly buggers)
(65.4%) occurred between 12 noon and 6 PM.
(30.4%) occurred in a bike park (I thought this would have been a lot higher)
(69.6%) occurred on a trail

(62.6%) required surgical treatment.
The mean length of stay in an acute bed was 16.9 days
(30.8%) required admission to an intensive care unit (ICU)
For those requiring admission to a rehabilitation hospital, the mean length of stay at the rehabilitation center was 109.3 days (95% CI 83.5, 192.8).

(40.2%) who presented with spinal cord injuries,
(32.5%) improved by 1 ASIA category, 
(2.3%) improved by 2 ASIA categories.
ASIA/ISCoS Exam and Grade - Understanding Spinal Cord Injury

the vast majority of riders injured were recreational
(41.9%) complete paralysis among those suffering spinal cord trauma

Historically, the high-risk sports for spinal cord injury have been football, ice hockey, wrestling, diving, skiing, snowboarding, rugby, cheerleading, and baseball.


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## Uphill=sad (Dec 8, 2011)

Procter said:


> And this blog claims the total visits to whistler is 120k/year, which means approx 7 injuries (major enough to make the study) per 1000 visits. Not bad. But the TBI number is concerning.


This number is terribly high, but not unsurprising. Its the upper limb fractures that blow that stat out, clavicles and forearms, while seem bad at the time when its you (and me more than once), just aren't critical.

They removed some poor bugger who was stung by a bee from the stats...

It's the triage cat. 1 / 2's and the airlifts should have a much higher weighting in the stats. When your lying on the ground while people are working on you waiting for the air ambulance to land, your counting your life minutes.


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## pharmaboy (Nov 11, 2005)

Love this stuff. I posit that people wear braces in order for them to justify their extremely risky behaviour.

If married, the multiplier to the above is x6.


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## junkyardkid (Oct 2, 2014)

Fairly surprising numbers. I bought a neck brace because i dont want to be a statistic, i also figured a neck brace is cheaper than a wheel chair. I also got kids and i get a sore neck all the time anyways. I suppose we'll never really know how effective they are because most the time if they work people would just go home.


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## bing! (Jul 8, 2010)

pharmaboy said:


> Love this stuff. I posit that people wear braces in order for them to justify their extremely risky behaviour.
> 
> If married, the multiplier to the above is x6.


I posit that I wear a brace because I can afford to have the protection and I availed of it. Pretty much like insurance. Smoke'm if you got em, otherwise best of luck buddy!


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## pb123hou (May 26, 2015)

A friend of mine said neck braces are designed to redirect the force and break the collar bone instead of the neck. He bought one and wears it so I think he looked in to it. I think they are marketed/advertised to do that.


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## csermonet (Feb 2, 2009)

pb123hou said:


> A friend of mine said neck braces are designed to redirect the force and break the collar bone instead of the neck. He bought one and wears it so I think he looked in to it. I think they are marketed/advertised to do that.


I have never seen a neck brace advertised or marketed to break your collarbone.


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## pb123hou (May 26, 2015)

Lol. Buy this it will break your collarbone!
You're right, I wouldn't buy that either.
I was considering buying one. Here is a video that expl ains how the Leatt neck braces work. It's pretty informative and interesting. It does say.. "Designed to create alternative load paths ... alternative paths that distribute injury causing loads to places other than the riders neck; Redirects forces away from the neck and on to adjacent body structures". ... and similar phrases


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## NWS (Jun 30, 2010)

If you fall hard enough to break something, you're going to break something.

Collarbone seems like a perfectly reasonable "alternative" to a vertebra.


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