BRECKENRIDGE- As skiers shell out big bucks for boots, bindings and boards, experts are recommending that they don't forget to chip in a few dolars to protect their brains.

Helmets, once scarce on the slopes, are becoming more popular, among shredders and skiers, according to ski resort observers. Children in particular are being fitted with the contoured, hard shell devices.

Doctors note that they can rebuild ski-trashed kness, but once brains are even minimally damaged, the effects can be forever.

"I like to tell patients that you can walk with a limp but it's hard to think with a limp," said Dr. "P.J." Perrinjaquet of Breckenridge Medical Center.

Cushioning skier's heads from collisions with other skiers, rocks and trees has taken on new intensity with a recent rash of ski injuries and deaths in Colorado.

Among the four skiers who have died of injuries this season in Colorado was Michael Kennedy, son of the late U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy. Witnesses said Kennedy was playing football on Aspen's Ajax Mountain with friends and family New Year's Eve afternoon when he crashed into a tree.

The latest serious injury resulting from an apparent collision with an object was an 11-year-old girl who sustained a head injury while skiing Saturday at Beaver Creek Ski Resort.

Although resort officials wouldn't confirm how the accident happened, early reports indicatd she either skied into a tree or into a bridge spanning a ski trail.

Last year 15 skiers died on Colorado slopes, with nine of those sustaining fatal injuries when they hit trees.

Jim Chalat, a Denver lawyer who is nationally known for handling ski litigation, said he wears a helmet and insists that "my children who I can tell what to do wear them and the others, I make read depositions" on ski injury cases.

"We're the ones who are called by parents of children injured skiing" Chalat said. "It's heartbreaking."