Attey said his concept was based on a rubber ball compressing on impact when it bounces, dispersing energy, before returning to its normal shape.
After settling on a prototype, Attey found business partners in Peter Cummins, the founder of Cash Converters and now a Perth Bears board member, and former NRL executive Jonnie Stewart, who has been appointed managing director of Gamegear.
Stewart said independent testing of the headgear at Crashlab, which is a Transport NSW body, reinforced their belief that Attey’s product is cutting-edge technology that will “redefine” the protective capacity of headgear.
“When you test this thing in a crash lab, it’s 10 times more effective than anything that’s out there,” Stewart said.
Inventor Graeme Attey.
“We’ve got really, really good results in a crash lab that show you that we can reduce impact to the head, and that this is an effective product.
“We’re very clear and we’re very confident we’ve got the best product in terms of impact reduction. The next step is that we’ll actually be funding the first-ever medical field trial for concussion research and headgear.
“In order to be able to claim or prove that you can stop concussion, you have to run a medical trial. That’s going to cost $1 million in private funding, and we’re going to have to bankroll the whole thing, but that’s what we’re prepared to do.
“It’s going to take two years, and at the end of it we will evaluate the data and ultimately hope to be able to say this particular design of headgear does, in fact, reduce the incidence and severity of concussion.
“That’s what we’re setting out to prove. We can’t say that today, but what we can say is we’re putting the money behind a trial. So there’s serious investment into medical research – investment that the codes can benefit from if the results are positive.”
While they await the results of the research, which is expected to involve 600 athletes, Gamegear helmets are already being offered to NRL, AFL and Super Rugby players to test.
‘We want to do for contact sports what seatbelts did for road safety.’
Gamegear inventor Graeme Attey
Manly veteran Jake Trbojevic, who suffered three concussions last year, has been wearing one on a trial basis during pre-season training.
Former Melbourne Storm prop Christian Welch, who was forced to retire 12 months ago after a series of head knocks, and ex-AFL Brownlow Medallist Simon Black have signed up as Gamegear ambassadors.
Gamegear helmets are already retailing at $215 apiece, often to parents of junior players who became aware of them through word of mouth.
Concussion has become a major issue in sport in the quarter of a century since an American neuropathologist, Dr Bennet Omalu, discovered a link between head knocks and early onset dementia in former NFL players, a condition he named Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).
More and more footballers have been forced to take extended breaks from the game or retire prematurely after suffering concussion-related symptoms. Many ex-players have been posthumously diagnosed with CTE after undergoing autopsies.
Dr Rowena Mobbs, an independent sports neurologist who is regarded as a leader in her field and has treated numerous concussed footballers, indicated she would reserve judgement until the results of the research have been published.
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“Gamegear is representative of multiple frontline efforts to reduce concussion, in this case proposing nodal-impact attenuation to ‘shatter’ energy before it hits the brain,” she said.
“Clinicians such as myself will keenly await any hard evidence from the upcoming two-year trial, I understand to be performed in partnership with Connectivity Traumatic Brain Injury Australia.
“Science must come before hype, and we are effectively just in the warm-up stage. We may be looking at a percentage reduction in risk, not the total prevention of injury, if any benefit at all with headgear in the football codes.”
Attey just hopes his invention can “make a difference” for athletes.
“I actually said to my wife 13 years ago: ‘Do you mind if I do this project? It’s not going to make any money’,” he said. “I just wanted to do it because it’s something that needs to be done. That was my mindset when I started.”
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