Protective helmet with cervical spine protection and additional brain protection
AssigneeScott W. Nagely
InventorsScott W. Nagely, Ian D. Kovacevich, Christopher R. Hoy
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A protective helmet, which includes a motion restrictor device, is disclosed which has at least one strut member associated with the helmet and a harness assembly, and the at least one strut member includes a locking assembly associated with the strut member, which upon a predetermined force being sensed by a force sensor or a predetermined amount of or rate of acceleration being sensed by an acceleration sensor, stops substantially all relative motion between the ends of the strut member and the predetermined force is substantially transferred from the helmet to the harness assembly.
Claims33
A motion restrictor device for use with a protective helmet to reduce the risk of head or spine injury caused by injurious movement of the helmet, said motion restrictor device comprising:
- a harness wearable by a user of the helmet;
- at least one strut member having first and second ends, the first end of the at least one strut member adapted to be associated with a protective helmet and the second end of the at least one strut member adapted to be associated with a harness assembly worn by the user;
- said at least one strut member permitting relative motion between the first and second ends of the at least one strut member;
- and
- an arresting assembly associated with the at least one strut member,
- said arresting assembly being shiftable into and out of a first locked configuration in response to the injurious movement to stop substantially all relative motion between the first and second ends of the at least one strut member, and thereby generally prevent helmet movement relative to the harness.
A motion restrictor device for use with a protective helmet, said motion restrictor device comprising:
- a harness wearable by a user of the helmet;
- at least three struts operable to connect the harness to the helmet so as to reduce the risk of a head or spine injury, with a pair of the struts being located on opposite sides of the user's head when the harness is worn and another one of the struts being located behind the user's head when the harness is worn,
- each of said struts including first and second elongated strut members that are shiftably engaged with one another and presenting first and second ends, with each of the first ends adapted to be associated with the helmet and each of the second ends coupled to the harness,
- said first and second elongated strut members being shiftable with respect to one another in response to relative movement between the first and second ends;
- and
- a brake assembly coupled to the first and second elongated strut members and responsive to a threshold rate of movement between the first and second elongated strut members to restrict helmet movement relative to the harness and to distribute loads from the helmet to the harness.
A method of restricting motion of a protective helmet to be worn by a user, said method comprising the steps of:
- linking the helmet to a portion of the user's torso by a coupling that comprises relatively shiftable first and second members, with the first member being affixed to the helmet and the second member being connected to a portion of the user's torso;
- and
- upon the occurrence of an injurious condition corresponding to injury to the head or spine of the user, arresting relative movement between the first and second members so as to prevent corresponding relative movement between the helmet and the user's torso.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.