i've had a friend of mine kill himself on one... rolled it over and the bars went threw his skull... i myself was hospitalized for 10 days becuase i lacerated my spleen.. since then i've only made mine faster and i won't ever stop riding unless im dead

 

I had a fairly bad wreck about 2 and a half months ago. I walked away very lucky considering what could or should have happened.

I was going down a large dune at about 55mph and hit a big rut that I didn't see coming, it threw the back end of the machine up and almost bucked me off. I was able to hold on, but when I came back down to the atv, my right foot broke through the floor board (for lack of a better term) just in front of the foot peg. When that happened, my right foot went straight through the plastic, and under the machine. This caused me to slam down to the right side and the atv started rolling/flipping.

It went over a few times, and I was wrapped up in it like a pretzel. My right leg was stuck between the front fender and the floor board, and got tangled up in the left front wheel under the atv, my head got pinned between the front left fender and the handle bars. When it first rolled to the right, I guess my hand got slammed into the ground, shortly followed by my head....that impact at about 50mph with a 600lb machine on top of me knocked me unconscious. The atv came to a stop sitting upside down with my head pinned under the handle bar still, and my leg sticking up through the floorboard, pinned between the foot peg and fender.

I came-to with my buddy trying to roll the machine back over off of me. I had to yell at him to stop because my head was pinned under it, and my leg was stuck on top...so it wasn't coming of without breaking my ankle in the process, unless he unpinned it first (which he did after I yelled at him to do so).

When he got it off, I knew that I had broken my hand and wrist right away, it was already throbbing and useless. My neck was ok, which I'm surprised with how bad it got twisted, and how hard my head slammed into the sand. My leg was a little beat up, luckily I was wearing long pants...if not, the sharp edge from the broken fender would have sliced it to pieces.

In the end, I came out with two broken bones (one in the wrist, one in the hand) a sprained wrist, an extremely soar and stiff neck, a bruised up leg and a broken four wheeler.


2.5 months later, my hand/wrist is back to 100%, my neck is fine, my leg looks normal, and I'm in the process of re-building my atv.
I'm still a huge atv fan and enthusiast, and will continue to ride as much as possible.

I learned two major things that day..... the first is NEVER RIDE ALONE. I would have been there for a long time if my buddy Jason had decided not to come along with me. The rest of our group was down at the beach and had no idea what happened. I was going to go alone too, Jason jumped on his machine and came along at the last second because he didn't want any of us to ride alone....I'm very thankful for I'm very thankful for that.

The second is know the terrain and the area/trail you are riding on before you go flying across/down it. I was over those dunes the entire morning before that...I just decided to take a new course at full throttle because the dune looked like all the others, I just didn't realize that there was a few foot deep rut right on the blind side of the hill. This whole thing could have been avoided if I would have just taken my time and went over the dune slowly at first, I would have known about the rut and would have either went around it, or slowed down. You see too many people going full speed down a trail or hill that they have never been over before just for the thrill of it, and sad to say...thats how a lot of people get injured or killed.

Sorry for writing a book, this is the first time I have really sat down and talked about the whole situation in detail.

Kyle

 

Then that Day in april 2006 when my daughter had a girl friend stay over night. The next morning I told the girls I had to run to town and would be back in a Hour. When I got home I saw that not only was the Z400 gone but her friend was driving my Kodiak 450! I Paniced and took off in my truck looking for them. About 2 minutes later my cell phone rang and a little old lady was telling my that there was a bad ATV accident down the road. The first thing I saw was the front end of my kodiak was smashed so I knew it wasent going to be good. Amanda was kneeling down next to her and Blood was everywhere. She had ran off the road and hit a culvert and her head smashed into the rack then it flipped her into the air for 30 feet. Her eye lid was tore off and barley hanging there. Her eye was swelling the size of a softball and getting bigger as I looked at it. Amanda made her wear a helmet and goggles which saved her life.Soon the highway patrol arrived with a Ambulance. I was fearing the worst and so was the Ambulance Crew so They called in a lifeFlight and took her to St. louis. 10 days later she was back at school. She told my daughter she couldn't undertand it caused she wearked my ATV and then got a Insurance check for$20,000. Thank God I had insurance which paid everything. We all learned a lot that Day. I was able to trade in the kodiak and came home with the Quad of all Quads. I've had a few but nothing comes close to perfect as the 700 Grizzly!!!

 

My brother broke both his feet at hte same time. He landed to hard on a jump and sheared them at the ankle now has steel plates in both feet