TAKE THE TIME TO READ THIS A lesson worth sharing,: ATV safety has always been very high on my list and with precautions here is what can happen anyway. This is just not about an accident/injury but the lasting ramifications.

Back on Aug 5th of 05 I took a gal friend riding, she was somewhat inexperienced so I limited where she could ride, I kept her to a flat area with gravel. She asked if she could go down a very gentle trail and I said yes. She ended up getting very confident and took off down a very rough rocky trail. I chased after her yelling at her to stop. She got hung up on rocks, panicked, nailed the throttle on my Kawi BF 650 proceeded about 60 ft, hit a wall of rocks. She went over the bars, landed sitting up. The bike got about 6-7 feet of air and landed DIRECTLY on her head. She was wearing, helmet, chest protector and gloves. When I pulled the bike off her I knew it was very serious. She was having trouble breathing and was in a lot of pain especially in her back and chest. I grabbed my cell phone but no service where we were. I assessed her injuries and knew her back was broken along with ribs and probably sternum. I told her we had a choice… I leave her to go for help and if she quit breathing she would die.. or we get her to the truck, risk paralysis and drive till we could get help. We opted for the truck. Took us over 20 minutes to go 100yds. Somehow she made it. We got cell service met the ambulance (over 1 hour later) and they called flight for life. Her injuries were quite severe. 3 broken vertebrae, 7 broken ribs (3 so badly they eventually removed them) and a broken sternum, on top of all this all her major organs were damaged quite bad. She underwent numerous surgeries. This was back in August last year. Just now she is up and around a little. She will never be OK physically. I barely knew her before the accident but out of compassion and GUILT, I kept her at my home while she was not in the hospital and took her to Doctor appts. etc for the next 9 months. She did have excellent insurance but… the lasting ramifications are that she will never be right again, her life has been seriously altered. Taking care of her as an invalid kept me from working for months, drained my savings and has placed me in severe financial hardship which will take years from now to recover from. Nothing compared to her loss.

Please realize that just a second of not thinking or planning can ruin lives forever. I shouldn’t have let her on my bike and she should not have done what she did. To this day she admits she did everything I told her not to. The accident took less than 5 seconds to happen. The damage is going to last a lifetime. Please take this to heart and let our lesson keep this from happening to you others.

 

WOW thats sad, my cousin erica, did the same thing...
she was on my cousins rancher. i was on my XR80 i told her stay behind me and dont get to close! well after getting bored of 15 mph she passed me and took of down the trail she hit tops speed (about45) and went right into a tree... her and her freidn were launched 25 feet were one landed ontop of the other. her freind was fien but my cousin was knocked out cold.
wile the girl went to get help i yelled at my cousin untill i got her awake. then my uncle got there with his truck and they took her to the hospitol. she need 14 stiches to her jaw area, and her arm was fractured. she was very lucky!

I am sorry about what happend, but its a good lesson, if your gunna let somone ride your stuff, make sure they know what there doing, and make sure you can trust them!


Fred

 

i, too, am sorry for you and especially your friend. miracles still happen, so dont quit believing.

anyway this scenrio happens all too often in our sport causing serious injury and even death. and is geting national attention, and of course, adding to bad publicity surrounding atvs.

Recently, last November, a little neighbor girl was killed when the ATV she was on with 2 other little girls flipped over and she got pinned under it. very sad. Even more recently, last month, a friend of mine - his little girl was tragically killed when the same kinda thing happened. That one hit closer to home. You may even think, "it wont ever happen to me," but anything can happen and saftey gear is not a shield for all scenerios. But it does help.
However, if these girls were wearing safety gear in these events i tell of, it may not have mattered - the atvs were too powerful, they were inexperienced, and the sheer weight/size of the machines were just too much for them to correctly control and overcome.

why do i say this? as tragic as all these incidents are, we must always remember to be very careful and ride correctly AND watch out for the other people, even anticipating their moves.

nearly all ATV accidents can be prevented: that's not to say they WONT- but accidents can still happen to the best riders and top pros, even, so there no use in carrying overburdonsome guilt. what's done is done- you cant turn back time. you just have too, no, we ALL have to be involved with the safety of our sport to help prevent future occurances of this happening to us, our family, friends, and everyone riding.

 

Twenty,
Thanks for the reply. what I really want is for many people to read this and just take a second to think before they ride next time. Please copy it and send it to whom ever you can. It is funny folks who reply to this type of thread are the ones it happened to. The ones who have never experienced this seem to ignore it.

I am and always have been very safe on the bikes. My kid gets frusterated as I work so much on safety with him. Yet look what happened. One wrong decision, one lack of clarity and boom, its over.

Its funny you say about miracles. I barely knew this gal when this happened and now we are so close its amazing. So yes you are right, never give up hope and if you hang in there and do the right thing miracles do happen,

thanks again,

Rob B.

 

Yep..that sucks

My cousin (a chick) took the 4-wheeler witha friend (did not ask permission) no helmet and took a very straight trail into town...after hitting a short hill at maybe 30mph she lost control and hit a tree head-on.. ..well not sure how but they both departed from the quad but one walked to town...and my cousin tried to walk home but layed down to rest in a field...

a short time later my dad took the dog for a nice walk and found her...the friend had been too scared to call for help....

a long story short after a lifeflight and a month in the hospital and shaved head she was able to go home....

a few years pass and her brother riding his dirtbike gets hit by a car at a crossing(no helmit)....

a long story short after a lifeflight he was able to make a full recovery quickly

life is precious.....live smart

 

Thanks squeege,
And again I reiterate.. its the folks who have lived this are the ones that reply. Thank god all of those in your experiences came out ok. How do we get this to those that have not "lived" it?

How many can we send this thread to?

Respectfully,
Rob

 

hard to say, send a PM to either MWQ or Raptory and ask them[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

you know its kinda interesting because everytime i let someone ride my quad, they do the same thing. They either in panic or on accident, FULLY pin the gas on either my scrammy or z400 and end up flipping ( its happened 3 times and WONT happen again, no one rides my quad anymore)

 

Hey Garrett,
yup, you want to be the good guy and share the toys and the fun and whammo, its gets bad real quick. Please do what you can to send this thread to others and get them to read it. summer time is here are after a long lay off folks are out tearing it up again. Maybe a well placed email or response to this thread just might save some folks a summer of grief.
thanks
Rob

 

It so just dawned on me. We are all so quick to reply to, copy, send, share a funny moment or a cool video, a quick witted post or email but when it comes to this stuff we seem to just clam up.
Are we afraid to be less than cool?
Its OK to urge someone on to make that big jump but why is it so hard to walk up to an unsafe rider and say "dont do it"? We have all seen someone doing something unsafe yet did you or I say anything?
If all of us experienced riders keep our eyes and ears open and share our experience how many people will NOT get hurt this year?

dont know but isnt it worth a shot?