Josh Hardy, 18, was skateboarding along the Frame Lake Trail in Yellowknife when he fell off his board and fractured his skull. He later died in hospital in Edmonton. Josh Hardy, 18, was skateboarding along the Frame Lake Trail in Yellowknife when he fell off his board and fractured his skull. He later died in hospital in Edmonton. (Family photo)

A Yellowknife couple whose son died from a head injury last week say cyclists and skateboarders need to wear helmets.

Josh Hardy, 18, fell off his longboard while travelling down a hill along Frame Lake Trail in Yellowknife on July 23. He was airlifted to a hospital in Edmonton with a serious head injury and died a few days later.

His mother Jackie hopes others learn from their tragedy.

"Everyone should be wearing a helmet in general because you don't want your parents, your friends, your relatives to have to go through what we're going through," she said.

Jackie and Ed Hardy, Josh's parents, are urging cyclists and skateboarders to wear helmets.Jackie and Ed Hardy, Josh's parents, are urging cyclists and skateboarders to wear helmets. (CBC)

"Having to bury someone so young and so vibrant and everyone thinks it'll never happen to me but it can and it does."

Hardy and her husband Ed are pressing for a law to make helmets mandatory for cycling and skateboarding.

Ed Hardy, a workplace safety officer, says he has started stopping people he sees riding without a helmet to encourage them to put one on.

Hardy said he kept telling his son to wear a helmet