A decade of deaths: 24 children killed on quad bikes in Australia
Children are dying in quad-bike accidents across Australia. These sobering stories show why the devastating incidents cannot be ignored.
Children are dying on farms as a minority of parents ignore age limits and warning labels to allow their offspring and friends to ride or be carried as passengers on quad bikes or drive half-tonne side-by-side vehicles.
Every quad bike sold in Australia states “never operate this ATV if you are under age 16”, while side-by-side vehicles are not meant to be driven by unlicensed drivers.
Yet of the 163 people killed on quad bikes alone, since 2011, 24 were children, representing 15 per cent of fatalities, with the youngest and most recent a two-year-old who lost his life at Barnawartha North last Christmas riding as passenger with his father.
In addition to the two-year-old, another three children lost their lives on quad bikes last year, including a:
10-YEAR-OLD Victorian boy killed in a quad-bike rollover.
12-year-old boy from the Northern Territory was killed in quad-bike road accident.
13-YEAR-OLD Queensland girl was killed when her quad bike rolled over while travelling up a slope.
Just last week the father of the two-year-old killed on Christmas Day appeared in Wodonga Magistrates’ Court charged with culpable driving.
Police allege Christopher Browne, 31, was driving an all-terrain vehicle at his Moss Rd property last year when it rolled and his son Lincoln, 2, was thrown from the vehicle and died at the scene.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission estimates six people present to an emergency department each day as a result of quad-bike accidents, of which two are admitted to hospital with serious injuries.
Repeated coronial investigations have called for children to be banned from riding quad bikes, yet no state minister has ever taken action.
In November 2015 NSW Deputy State Coroner Magistrate Sharon Freund examined 13 quad-bike deaths, which led her to call on the NSW Law Reform Commission and the NSW Attorney-General, to consider “the introduction of legislation prohibiting any child under 16 years from using an adult sized quad bike, side-by-side or related vehicle”.
The Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries has also repeatedly called for legislated bans.
But Victorian Farmers Federation president Emma Germano said a ban just would not work, given it would be impossible to police.
Ms Germano said farmers and their children needed to be “shocked” into understanding what could happen, with those who had lost loved ones telling their stories.
Some of those stories outlined by the NSW Coroner include:
CASE ONE
LE (initials only) died aged seven on January 18, 2015, as a result of overturning an adult sized CF Moto 500cc quad bike he was riding.
LE was out camping and droving sheep with his grandfather near Walgett in NSW, when he offered to take the quad bike to open a gate to move the stock.
After a few minutes, the grandfather noticed the sheep were not moving through the gate, so he drove out to find the boy trapped underneath the 360kg quad bike.
LE’s grandfather rolled the quad bike off him, but he was not breathing and was pronounced dead on arrival at Walgett Hospital.
Quad-bike tracks were observed in the dirt in the area where the accident occurred, showing LE had performed a sharp “doughnut” turn immediately before the accident.
An external post-mortem examination was conducted including a CT scan, with the cause of death listed as traumatic asphyxia.
CASE TWO
ML died on July 11, 2012, aged 13, when she lost control of the Yamaha Grizzly 550FI quad bike she was riding on her parents’ property.
There were three passengers on the rear of the bike – all of them children, aged 10, 11 and 16, when it hit a raised driveway and became airborne, about a metre into the air before hitting the ground and flipping end over end, before landing back on its wheels.
The girls who were passengers fell from the bike, but tragically ML, who was not wearing a helmet, suffered severe head injuries and died at the scene.
The post-mortem report dated August 6, 2012 found the direct cause of ML’s death was a “fractured base of skull and jaw”.
CASE THREE
FW, a nine-year-old boy, died on April 30, 2012 when the Polaris Ranger SSV he was driving rolled over, trapping his legs.
FW’s parents were working in the wool shed at their property at Westby, when he took the SSV up a nearby slope and rolled it on to its side.
An employee saw the SSV lying on its side and with FW’s father raced to the scene to lift it high enough to pull the boy free.
CPR was begun and an ambulance called to take him to hospital, but FW went into cardiac arrest and was unable to be saved.
Police formed the view that FW had not been wearing a seatbelt, and that he would not have been ejected from the SSV if he had been wearing one.
The direct cause of death at autopsy was found to be “abdominal crush injuries”.
CASE FOUR
JH was an 11-year-old boy who died on July 24, 2011 after the Yamaha Rhino 600 SSV he was driving tipped on its side at his home in northern NSW.
JH’s father was working in his shed on the property, when he looked up and saw the SSV on its side, down a dirt track below the house.
He ran down to the SSV, and found JH in the vehicle with his left arm pinned underneath the rollover protection structure, unconscious and bleeding from the head.
But the father was unable to lift the SSV off his son and was forced to call on a neighbour for help.
After removing JH they performed CPR, but when ambulance officers arrived they were unable to save him.
Police found JH was not wearing a helmet or seatbelt and had been playing with the SSV on a man-made dirt track below the house, which had 180 degree hairpin turn with a steep dirt wall where the SSV tipped onto its side.
The post-mortem dated August 3, 2011, had recorded the direct cause of JH’s death as “head injuries suffered in a quad motorbike accident”.
The SSV was clearly marked with warnings that it was not to be used by persons under 16 years.
However, JH had been using the SSV for about two years before the accident (that is, since he was nine years old).
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