Keeping It Upright
Contributed by Debra McGhan
Driving west on Seldon Road, I spotted a side-by-side filled with teenagers sailing along at top speed in the ditch next to the roadway. I watched as they shot up the side of a bank, and just as they made the turn at the top and started down, the driver lost control and the machine tipped over and rolled down the slope. The machine landed in a heap at the bottom, and I slowed down and pulled off the road, grabbing my phone and dialing 911.
I hate being first on scene. I often wonder why this keeps happening to me. Screaming teenagers. Crying, confused, trying to figure out what to do. It’s always so much. Jumping out of my car, I started toward them. Kids were scrambling out of the machine, and I spotted one girl on her cell phone.
“Are you calling 911?” I asked.
“No,” she said through shaking tears. “My Mom.”
The others were checking each other for injuries, and one kept saying, “Are you okay? Are you okay?”
Taking control of the scene, I instructed all the kids to take a deep breath and try to calm down. I asked about injuries and quickly realized one of the girls was still trapped inside the side-by-side, hanging upside down. She became priority one.
Within minutes, I heard the blessed sounds of sirens approaching and the relief of trained medics rolling up and jumping into action to take over. I provided my statement to the arriving trooper and was promptly dismissed. As I drove away, the adrenaline pumping through my veins slowly subsided.
This incident reinforced the reason I’ve put so much time and energy into outdoor safety education programs in my lifetime. We need to train our children, so they know how to avoid situations like this. And what to do when they do happen.
Because accidents like this do happen. Far too often. I’ve watched kids go from laughing and having a great day to lying in a hospital emergency room with tubes and needles sticking out of their fragile little bodies when everything went wrong in the blink of an eye.
This summer, thanks to support from the Alaska Community Foundation and Mat-Su Health Foundation, Alaska Safe Riders will be offering free ATV safety camps for youth from ages 10 and up. This is an incredible opportunity to give your children the gift of a thrilling, hands-on, educational summer camp.
The camp includes a mandatory online e-learning portion, followed by a full-day field workshop. Machines for the field portion will be provided by ASR. Just show up with your helmet, gloves, long pants, long-sleeve shirt, over-the-ankle boots, and your e-certificate for completing the online training portion. If you need any help with these items, let ASR know when you sign up and they’ll do their best to help.
Preparation and planning for the camps are currently ongoing, and all the details will be published at AlaskaSafeRiders.org soon. Because space is limited, if you are interested in taking advantage of this special opportunity, I encourage you to reserve a spot by contacting ASR through the contact form on their website.
Whether you are the operator or just a passenger of an off-road vehicle, it pays to know what to do in the event of an emergency. The Alaska State Troopers continue to support these outdoor safety education programs, helping to make it possible for ASR to offer them at no cost. We do suggest a $100 per person donation to help sustain the program, but that must not be a barrier to getting your children the safety education that could save their lives.
When I’m teaching youth camps, I always like to ask, “Do you own an ATV?” If the answer is no, my next question is, “Do you wish you did?” Almost every time the answer is a resounding yes.
This year, get prepared in the event your children have the chance to explore Alaska’s backcountry on an ATV by taking advantage of this special summer camp opportunity made possible thanks to the Alaska Community Foundation, Mat-Su Health Foundation, Alaska State Troopers and ConocoPhillips. Learn more at AlaskaSafeRiders.org.