As a man who wears a helmet for a living, in my 16 years as a professional firefighter I’ve never seen a chinstrap failure occur in one of our helmets.
Years ago, I remember having brought in a charged attack line to a 2nd floor fire. Another crew was ahead of me, but there was a problem with their line and they had no water.
The guy wouldn’t back out (as he was supposed to) and the seat of the fire was just in front of him. So I did a sweep of the fire with my nozzle, and part of my stream caught his helmet and it went flying.
He got an instant tan on his forehead because of his stubbornness.
To this day, when he talks about fire ground safety … I like to remind him of his “chin strap” failure. Of course, he says nothing.
Whatever was the case with that motorcyclist, I pray his family finds comfort in these difficult times …