(emphasis mine)

Gosh, I really hope you meant to say "blew up at him"--images from The Hurt Locker came to mind...

I'm not saying this applies to you personally, comms, but just using this space to say that we're really only scratching the surface of acknowledging, let alone understanding, the often subtle but very real cognitive and emotional effects of head injuries, even ones that don't seem that severe. These effects often last a lifetime. A decade spent fighting two wars where the IED is the main weapon of choice and where traumatic brain injury is the defining injury of these conflicts has pushed the issue to the forefront. Medicine is still pretty simplistic in how it evaluates the more subtle aspects of head injuries.

I guess we shouldn't leave athletes out either. Football player Junior Seau's recent suicide (along with many other suicides by NFL players) illustrates the toll that repeated blows to the head can take. Knowing what we know now, if I had children, I don't think I would let them play football. Autopsies reveal that even high school players can already show signs of permanent brain injuries, and these changes can occur in players who say they've never had concussions.

But back to the original question for a sec, brain injuries can be incredibly severe and debilitating, so if a helmet of some sort can prevent or at least mitigate the damage from some sort of blow to the head during a tornado (or even when walking around the debris and torn up structures afterwards) then it is well worth it. Not sure how practical it is to expect to get to it in many tornado situations, but worth it if works out.

You sometimes see people on gun forums brag that they have a gun within two steps in every room of their house, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility for someone in tornado alley to have a hard hat or other head protection in multiple places. (How come you never see folks bragging about having a first aid kit in every room? )