Quad-bike trauma: RCH surgeon Warwick Teague sees ATV carnage

WARWICK Teague is one of the first faces you will see if your child is injured by a rolling quad bike or slams into the ground without a helmet.

Call for action: Royal Children’s Hospital trauma service director and surgeon Warwick Teague. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

WARWICK Teague is one of the first faces you will see if your child is injured by a rolling quad bike or slams into the ground without a helmet.

As a paediatric surgeon and the Melbourne Royal Children’s Hospital’s trauma director, Mr Teague and his team work hard to save the lives of children affected by farm vehicle accidents, but it is work he would rather not have to do.

He said he wanted the quad-bike trauma to end, to no longer hear the screams of a grieving mother echo down the hospital hallway or battle to repair fragile bodies clinging to life.

For Mr Teague the solution is simple: “Ban children riding quad bikes”.

“It’s a cause we can change overnight,” he said.

It’s a change Mr Teague has been calling for ever since he became aware of the impact of quad bikes, after being called on to save a child crushed under one in 2013.

In the past 10 years, almost 800 Victorian children under the age of 16 have been injured in quad-bike accidents, with a third admitted to hospital and half of those undergoing surgery.

“There are great alternatives to quad bikes, but as parents we have no alternative but to protect our children,” Mr Teague said. “We don’t hand our children guns, we’ve got strict regulation in place. In the same way we shouldn’t put them on quad bikes.”

Mr Teague said the cost of quad-bike trauma was beyond any financial measure, given children could left with lifelong disabilities, from brain, spinal or crush injuries.

“The burden of these injuries are felt by the child, but by their families, our education and health care systems,” he said.