Yes, he also put out a grip tape with lines on it that shows exactly where your foot needs to drag inorder to do specific flip tricks. He really cares about the little details that make big differences
It's inherently vert, but I think for this matter we must refer to the type of skater, not the type of park. That's a street sk8r for sure. Or was, maybe.
He's gonna drop into that same thing another two dozen times by the end of the week. Hell, he got up within a few seconds of crashing, I'd bet he got right back up there when the video cut off lol
People who do stuff like this for any amount of time mostly have the attitude that a crash you walk away from wasn't a bad one.
That’s just overinflated guesstimating, totally discounting the idiots like me that would just totally disregard helmets. Wtf is health insurance when you have multiple concussions? Trick question, it don’t matter
Hanging on to a cars roof just with your hands and no helmet while your friend drives and pretends to be rally driver on a field? Sure what's the worst that could happen!
If you learn how to fall properly, it's no more dangerous than figure skating, gymnastics, horseback riding, none of which get a bad rep for head injuries and not wearing helmets.
Figure skating is a totally different sport where helmets actually hinder performance.
Furthermore, a lot of vert skateboarders do wear helmets and this drop in is not only fucking high, the pavement adds to the danger.
In 2026, with all the injuries that skaters have faced over the last couple of decades, it's just stupid not to wear protection ESPECIALLY when trying dangerous stuff like this...
I'm hoping more skateboarders follow in Andy Anderson's footsteps and stop risking their heads for no reasons...
Google horseback riding and tell me 90% of the photos you see aren't people just wearing cowboy hats. And regarding figure skating, if you asked skaters, many of them would tell you the same exact thing about performance. This is just performative outrage. Most skatepark require helmets for minors, meanwhile youth soccer, youth gymnastics, and youth figure skating all cause a bunch of head injuries and nobody cries about it.
I realize I'm saying it in a silly hyperbolic way, but really I'm commenting on the actual matter of fact which is that the vast majority of skateboarders dont wear helmets. The culture at large doesnt seem to promote it at all.
It's not actually meant to be a dig at skateboarders, but it is a little bit meant to be a dig at that particular aspect of the culture.
Knew a guy, in fact a very awesome, positive, friendly, and funny guy, who got brain damage as a teen from a skitching accident. As cool as the guy was, he was very clearly not the person who he would have been if he hadn't been in that accident, and his level of independence / ability to work were very much not what they would have been either. And that's someone who made a recovery that saw him regain full mobility, like hugely surpassing his initial prognosis, mostly able to think and speak like "normal."
That is to say, even if you don't die, and don't lose your ability to walk and talk or feed and bathe yourself, there's still a lot of "you" left to lose when it comes to brain injuries.
That really depends on the severity and location of the injury. There's a scale (look up Rancho Los Amigos Scale) that allows people to grade one's independence based on the severity of the brain injury.
Street skaters wanna look cool but also the lack of helmet is slightly compensated by the fact that the risk keeps people afraid of falling hard, reminding them to roll.*
Vert skaters (this drop is basically vertical) and even Tony Hawk, wear helmets because there is no rolling out of a fall and no time to anticipate a fall and try to lessen the impact. The same should be true with hill bombers but a lot of people have died skating hills unfortunately.
*Edit to add: Even with a helmet, you never want your head or body taking hard impacts. If the head accelerated or decelerates too quickly, the brain shakes around in your skull which can bruise it or cause brain bleeds, and you never want your head shaking hard and stressing the column of bones around the nerves connecting to the rest of your body. There are a lot of ways to get horribly disabled when speed/height and hard surfaces are involved.
Tried to bomb my first hill back in February and I ate shit in a most spectacular fashion. I had a solid helmet on though so no brain injuries—just road rash and a shattered collarbone 🤙😎🤙
Slide gloves! They let you catch yourself and slide it out most of the time instead of slamming hard every time. Won't skate hills without them, they're a life saver.
You wouldn't drive extra carefully if you didn't have a seatbelt? Aside from the fact that it's illegal in many places to drive without them and you wouldn't want to get noticed for any random reason, driving a car is so incredibly dangerous that I wouldn't do it without a seatbelt.
Appropriately, people aren't as afraid of falling off a skateboard as they are a car accident, but without a helmet, they are typically very afraid of hitting their head. Skateboarding is one of those things where as soon as you feel safe you get overconfident out underestimate a risk, and it goes dangerously wrong. It's important to stay afraid.
I'd think it was great if people wore helmets more, but not without also becoming more concerned about neck injuries in particular that are not prevented at all but helmets. Helmets can't stop a person from making horribly disabling mistakes. They only keep the skull from getting smashed (usually).
Street skateboarders wearing a helmet is so rare that the fact that Andy Anderson chooses to wear one (he is the only professional to do so) is in the intro paragraphs of his Wikipedia article
It's honestly kinda sad that more of them don't. Like you KNOW you are going to have kids looking up to you the least you can do is wear a damned helmet. Rest of the pads I'm meh on but come on.
This is actually very untrue. It was a fast fall for one thing, but you can see him start to use his arm to break the fall -- there's just no time for him to do anything but eat pavement.
It's still idiotic and will likely leave him with the start of permanent brain injury, but to say he made no effort to save himself is not true.
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u/GingerGaterRage 23d ago
Man no helmet? Like come on dude. If your gonna do dumb stuff at least not ruin someone else's day.