"Atv Accident - Wear Your Helmets!
I was outside in their driveway when I heard an ATV coming down the road which is an ATV Route. This is a pretty common thing but being an ATV guy like I am I usually stop what I am doing to see what people are riding. Well anyways along comes this ATV that is going faster than the posted 25 MPH speed limit which kind of ticks me off to see. There are two people on it, a guy driving and a girl riding. This I know because they were NOT wearing helmets. As they got to the corner of my parents lot the driver decides to slow down for some unknown reason. The driver decides to downshift very quickly and it almost sounded like the machine downshifted two gears. The machine was a Arctic Cat 300 and had 4WD. Well the sudden downshift force caused both the driver and rider to be thrown forward on the machine. Between the machine severe slowdown and the weight of the two people on it, the machine rolled over forwards on the blacktop road with both people underneath it. To spare you all the other details that happened the driver was able to climb out from under the machine and roll it back onto to its wheels. By the time I got there the guy driving was sitting on the ground over the girls head holding her forehead with her hand. He appeared fine other than some road rash to the side of his head, face and arm. The girl was just lying there on the road moaning her arm was broke and from her head injury. The girl had a gash in her forehead from up in her hair line down to the corner of her eye that was so deep that the when the guy let go the skin flapped back to reveal her skull. I called 911 within seconds of the accident happening but it still took the Ambulance almost 20 minutes to get there. The cops, first responders, and Heavy Rescue Fire Truck got there within 10 minutes. I don't know what the outcome of the girl was because of the privacy laws but they did Med Flight her out to a good hospital once they get her in the ambulance out in an open area to land the helicopter. Apparently the guy driver was drinking because after they treated him at the scene and got the girl out of there they were doing sobriety testing on him.
Having seen that kind of injury will definitely serve as a graphic reminder to always wear my helmet."
This accident was NOT caused by the lack of a helmet.
This accident was NOT caused by the ATV.
This accident was NOT caused by the road.
This accident was NOT caused by the alcohol.
This accident WAS caused by the operator.
Yes, I think everyone should wear a helmet, sometimes shit happens that you have no control over. But, all too often helmet advocates get so caught up in trying to force people to wear them that they lose sight of the real problem - the dumb bastard behind the handlebars! There is so much PREACHING to "always wear your helmet in case some dumb bastard gets behind the handlebars", how about a little more TEACHING people not to be dumb bastards to begin with?
I would have ended that story with: "Having seen that kind of stupidity will definitely serve as a graphic reminder to never be a dumb bastard."
