$1000 is way too high. I bought a helmet cam in 2009 that was designed for military applications (fairly robust, easy to change AA batteries) and it cost about $300-400 back then. Looking for fairly robust cameras I can see that the action camera in Olympus Tough lineup is currently selling for $350. I've seen other cameras in this product line take a good beating and come out fine.

Obviously there would be additional costs (memory cards, readers, batteries, chargers, harness, etc) but I don't see why it would come to more than $500-600 per person at most.