If he had a helmet with a shield it might have fragmented upon impact and the shrapnel could have blinded or killed him . I rode cycles before the law was passed making it mandatory to wear a helmet .I still wore one . A big beetle or bug in the eye at 65 mph is like getting hit with a rock
With the protection of the full face helmet's rigid framework around it, the polycarbonate shield is unlikely to catch a deep enough blow to shatter it, and even when it does that's usually preferable to having the impacting object hit right in the face.
If it hits your helmet in the forehead it sounds like a pistol shot.