Ride within your skill, teach your family the same thing. If you rolled your truck and went through the same hell would you let your kids drive a truck when they were older? Yes you would, so why not quads? Accidents can happen with anything, you can't stop doing something you like for fear of getting hurt.

This injury will show your family and friends what quading can do to you. Let them know how you feel and how you want them to ride safer. I ride my V-Force pretty damn hard and last winter I rolled it down a hill. Its fixed now but just the other day I climbed a hill and almost tipped it back over twice, so I stopped playing on those hills. I learned to stop climbing that hill because it was dangerous and I don't want my quad to be wrecked again.

So heal up, ride safe and enjoy life at a little more relaxed pace. Teach your family and friends responsible riding. You have a responsibility to your family, to help provide for them, to be there for them. You also want them to have fun, quading is alot of fun and I'm sure you all enjoy it so why take that away? You just don't need to go full tilt all the time.

Anyways, I'm sure you know whats best and you'll do the right thing. Take it easy.

 

Homedawg I hope you get to feeling better. I have to agree with the last post people wreck vehicles all the time and go right back to driving. I know I am a EMS director for a county in Kansas. We also have a ATV trail at Lake Perry and it is buzy almost every weekend. Most of the time when we are called out here it is because someone has rode past there limits or the machine limits. and some times accidents just happen for what every reason. I think you need to get back on the horse that threw you and don't let it beat you. Then chose to ride or not to ride.

 

When I was in fifth grade, my Dad, sister, and I took a short atv ride not far from my house during the half-time of a football game. We were riding in a neighbor's field, and had just watched some wild life. On our way back, some other neighbors of ours were jumping hills with their machines. My Dad, sister and I were all on the same machine. As we approached the crest of the first hill, one of our neighbors came flying over the top, landing on the left side of our machine. (we had moved over to the side of the trail because we thought that we heard something coming) In the accident, I nearly lost my left arm as our neighbors fender had sliced through my arm just above the elbow, breaking the bone, and nearly ripping it off. My Dad suffered a knee injury, and my sister a fracture wrist. I also had a large cut on my thigh where the tire had scraped my leg. I have since made a full recovery, and my dad sold the three wheeler. I have never been afraid of ATVing even since that day. It was an accident. No bodies fault really. I used to beg my dad to get a four wheeler, but he never would. Finally, last year I purchased a Grizzly 660, and my dad bought my cousins 300 Honda. This more than anything else has brought my father and me closer. We now share in an activity that we both love to do. I will never give up ATVing, and as long as you take certain safety percautions and ride within your limits, you should remain safe. We learned that day that we should always where helmets, and never to ride with 3 people even just for a short joy ride. I suspect that you have learned some lessons too. You will never drive beyond your limits again. If you pass that on to your wife and kids, then you have done something great. Help them learn from your mistakes, but don't keep them from something that can be a very rewarding family experience. One other note. My mom even goes ATVing with us now, and she never used to do anything like that. It is so awesome when my wife and I get together with others for a day of ATVing.

 

Guys,

I don't know how to thank all of you for taking the time to reply. It is funny how people that you don't even know can make such a difference in your life. I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart.

Through all of your encouragement, I feel better about the situation. I am going to keep the quads, slow down and finally accept that I will never be able to do the things that Bill Ballance or Doug Gust might do, but that doesn't matter. I have two kids and a wife who love me even though I will never star in a "Huevos film". As a matter of fact, my little girl thinks I am superman because I can ride a wheelie for a half mile.

Once again, thanks guys. Having a group of friends who share the same passion is important to me. A lot of people that I work with and some family members who have never ridden a quad like to tell me what to do. They all tell me that I am insane for letting my family get on one of those "deathtraps". But these are the same people who don't buckle thier seatbelts, let thier kids ride thier bikes unsupervised in the street and take thier kids to pee wee football practice and think nothing of it.

Your comments have made me realize how much I love his sport. It has given my wife and I a hobby that we can do together, and when the kids get bigger, we will all go out and have fun. I cannot give this up. I love it too much and I love what it has done for me and my family. I vow to slow down, think about the consequences of my actions and stop caring if my younger friend ride better. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who jumps farther or runs the trail faster. It's all about frienship, fun and the love of the greatest sport alive......

You guys rock and I will never forget your encouraging words. When I get out of the hospital, I will give you guys a report, hopefully a good one.

God bless you all and our wonderfuls sport.

Shannon Craig
AKA: Homedawg

 

Homedawg, glad your feeling better and I think you made a good choice to continue riding[img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img] Lt. Dan

 

Along with riding atv's, I also ride horses. Both sports are pretty dangerous, but I love them and I'm addicted to them anyway. I've had some bad wrecks with both. The worst has been from the horses, and let me say, at times I've just been scared to hop back in the saddle, literally. I took a few days off to get my head straight and get everything back together, and it was easy to get started again. But of course I was nervous, and took everything very cautiously. I wasn't about to go out and attempt to jump my horse over 3'3 fences like I had done previously. The same go's for quads I suppose. Take it easy, and don't do anything until youre ready. A slight amount of fear or being somewhat nervous shows respect for the animal or machine that youre working with. It's more powerful then you, and yes, you can get hurt, but if youre careful, injuries happen less.I like to live everyday to it's fullest, because..yeah...life is full of surprises and you don't know what'll happen next. Good luck, and I hope you continue riding quads. I hope you have a speedy and successful recovery too [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/img]

 

Well, it has been almost three years since the last reply on this thread. For anyone who might read this, I wanted to share something important. If noone reads, it was worth the time just getting it off my chest.

In the past 3 years since I injured myself, I contemplated selling my quads and giving up what seemed like a very dangerous hobby. I thought that if I just sold it all and played it safe, I could reduce the chance of something bad happening to me and my family. I rationalized that there are many other things we could do as a family that are perfectly safe. We could go to the movies, go out to eat, shop....Then I realized that we could all be fat and brain dead if we went that route. But of course you can still stay active and be safe. The kids can play sports like baseball and basketball and cheerleading and me and the wife can sit and watch and live our lives through them with nothing to add or teach them......That didn't sound like my style either. Furthermore, none of that is "perfectly safe" anyway. I went through a million other possibilities of what we could do as a family with no epiphany.

The decisions of a responsible person (father, husband, mortgage holder, etc..) are much harder than when I was a loner in college with no real consequences of **** poor decision making.

So I had to think some more.

After some more thinking, I discovered that my fear had very little to do with quads, but a greater fear of "something bad happening" and I wanted to control it in whatever way I could. I felt a loss of control after my injury and didn't like the feeling at all. I wanted to do whatever was in my power to make sure nothing bad ever happened to me or my family ever again. After being honest with myselt, it became obvious that this wasn't possible and that selling the quads would serve no purpose whatsoever, but instead render me feeling like a quitter and a failure.

I decided to stay riding quads, and I did. I rode again with less ego and more respect for the machine, and actually rode better. Go figure.

Now, I have a dirt bike, a quad for the wife, a quad for my six year old, and a dirt bike (with training wheels) for my 3 year old and a recently purchased street bike for the wife and I. We ride often. I am still too fat to be any good and I still have younger friends who race motocross. I will never win a cheap plastic trophy. I am jealous, but not jealous enough to be stupid. Stupid hurts and cheap plastic trophies won't pay the mortgage. But I still ride and It is more fun than ever.

I even bought my little brother and XR-100. My mother cried and was absolutely sure that he would get hurt on it and let me know that it would be all my fault if he did. About six months later, he broke his collarbone at football practice. My mother admitted that she never really worred about football being dangerous until he got hurt. Go figure.


The moral of the story is that I did not quit. I realized that if you don't quit, you cannot lose.

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to encourage those that need it. I hope this post helps someone in the position I was 30 months ago. One thing I always remember is that you have to either get busy living or get busy dying. I want to get busy living and I believe that is why we all ride. The funny thing is that the people who are the most vehement about quads and bikes being dangerous have never ridden, and the people who ride are typically those who have actually experienced some pain because of it, but ride on anyway. Go figure.