10-05-2006

Neurosurgeons at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, are renewing calls for a ban on the use of all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) by children under age 16 after a 10-year review of injuries caused by the vehicles.

“Children have no experience or training in driving motorized vehicles, and they’re driving them on uneven terrain where they can’t see what’s coming up ahead of them very well,” says T.S. Park, MD, the Shi Hui Huang Professor of Neurological Surgery at the School of Medicine and pediatric neurosurgeon-in-chief at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. “This is leading to an increasing number of fatalities and devastating injuries with lifelong consequences for children and their parents.”

Park and colleagues reviewed all cases seen at the hospital over a 10-year span, identifying 185 patients admitted as a result of ATV-related accidents. Among the study’s findings:

•    One-third of the patients suffered serious neurological injuries, including cerebral hemorrhages and skull fractures.

•    Two-thirds of the total patient population had to undergo inpatient rehabilitation.

•    Two patients had spinal cord injuries.

•    Two patients died.

The review was published in a July 2006 pediatric supplement to the Journal of Neurosurgery.

The study found twice as many males as females suffered neurological injuries. Patients included both riders and drivers, and their ages ranged from 2 to 17 years. Many of the injured did not wear helmets, according to Park.
In their paper, Park and his colleagues point out that from the time of the ATV’s introduction in 1971 to 1987, the vehicles caused an estimated 239,000 injuries and 600 deaths. An estimated 40% of all ATV-related deaths are children.

To reduce the increasing rates of serious injury and death from ATV-related accidents, Park and his colleagues strongly recommend new legislation crafted along guidelines previously proposed by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Those guidelines include:

•    Banning children younger than 16 from riding ATVs.

•    Mandatory helmet laws.

•    Mandatory instruction and certification programs fro ATV operators.
•    Prohibiting ATVs from public streets and highways.

[SOURCE: EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS; Washington University School of Medicine, September 2006]