Natasha Richardson

Ever wonder if media exposure can have a positive effect on sports safety? One has to look no further than to what happened after the deaths of two celebrities in skiing accidents in Europe and North America during the winter of 2008-9, the first, a German politician, wearing a ski helmet, who suffered a traumatic brain injury but survived a collision with a helmet-less mother of four on a ski slope in Austria on New Year's Day 2009 in which the woman died; the second, involving actress Natasha Richardson, who died after a traumatic head injury while skiing without a helmet on a beginner's slope in Quebec in March 2009.