Personal Injury Law

Illinois woman receives personal injuries in ATV accident

An Illinois woman received personal injuries in an ATV accident in McHenry County, Illinois over the weekend. Rescuers took the Chicago woman by helicopter to a hospital after she was injured in an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) collision near Wonder Lake in McHenry County.

ATVs are vehicles that travel on low pressure tires with a seat that is straddled by the operator, along with handlebars for steering control. After first introduced in the early 1970s, they almost immediately caused an alarming spike in personal injury rates for adolescents and children. Statistics released by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) show that there were an estimated 136,700 personal injuries in 2005 associated with ATVs treated in the United States hospital emergency rooms.

Recent articles have highlighted that ATVs are more deadly than motorcycles. People are far more likely to die after ATV accidents than after motorcycle accidents, trauma surgeons, and public health researchers announced earlier this month at the annual meeting of the American College of Surgeons. The conclusion was reached from information from a national trauma bank on almost 60,000 product liability accidents that occurred between 2002 and 2006 (13,749 from off-road motorcycle riding and 44,509 from ATV mishaps). The researchers stated that even when the severity of personal injuries was the same, the patients who had been injured riding ATVs were 50 percent more likely to die than those who had been injured riding motorcycles. They were also 50 percent more likely to need treatment in an intensive care unit and mechanical ventilation, compared to the motorcycle riders.

Follow the link to Chicago Breaking News.com to read more about the recent Illinois ATV accident.

Full post as published by Illinois Injury Lawyer Blog on October 17, 2010 (boomark / email).