Big Dipper syndrome

Rollercoasters can result in serious brain injury, however well protected the head, say Canadian doctors. In the New England Journal of Medicine, they describe the case of a 64-year-old man who developed severe headaches after riding a rollercoaster which swung him upside down as many as six times. During the rides his head was enclosed within bars that kept him stable in a chair.

The man was found to have developed a large blood clot on the left side of his brain that had to removed by major surgery. The doctors, from Victoria Hospital, London, point out that during a rollercoaster ride, the brain may be thrown about within a relatively rigid skull - a danger already recognised in the shaken baby syndrome.