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On Saturday night of the May long weekend in 2006, Hannah Jensen, then 15, and five friends were visiting in the Jensen’s family room when they decided to take the Jensens’ three quads out for a joy ride. Hannah recalls that it was almost dusk.
 Hannah was driving a quad on the Jensens’ long gravel driveway with a friend behind her. She says that she was going “fast, but not incredibly fast.”
She turned to talk to the friend behind her as she approached a corner. “My friend saw the corner coming up and screamed at me, but it was too late,” says Hannah. “We skidded off the driveway.”
The friend jumped off as the quad started sliding sideways, but Hannah held on. “My friend says the quad flipped once right over top of me, then again as I went down the bank and landed beside the fence.”
Her friend cut his arm and scraped his leg. Hannah, lying on the ground next to the quad, had a little cut on her head. She says she must have passed out since her friends had to shake her awake. She got up and her friend drove her back to the house on the quad.
“I was acting okay, but I didn’t recall that I had rolled the quad. My friends kept telling me it happened and asking me how I felt so I believed them,” says Hannah. “We hung out together for the rest of that night. I didn’t tell my parents when they came in, but one of my friends finally told them on Sunday night. My friends were worried about me because I couldn’t recall anything that happened.”
Hannah came home from school on Monday and felt very dizzy. She told her mother, Kelly, that she couldn’t focus. Kelly took Hannah to the Raymond hospital, which is right across the road from their house. “It was a very stressful time for the whole family,” says Hannah. “My brother was very upset. The doctors thought I might have bleeding on the brain, which would require brain surgery, but CAT scans showed I had a severe concussion.”
“Hannah’s accident was a real eye-opener for everybody in the family,” says Hannah’s mother, Kelly. “She wasn’t allowed to take the quad out without supervision, but thought it would be fun and nothing would happen. It scares everybody to think it could have cost her life.”
The quad accident was Hannah’s second serious concussion. She got her first concussion when she fell off a bed at a friend’s house and hit her head on a concrete floor. “I can’t risk a third one,” she says. “Now I can’t play rugby which is something I’ve always wanted to do. When you concuss your head, your brain becomes more delicate and easier to injure. Even getting hit in the head with a piece of chalk could give me a concussion now.”
Since Hannah’s quad accident, rules about taking the quads out for a ride are strictly observed. “The kids can ride the quads, but only with adult supervision and a helmet,” says Kelly. “I guess we could hide the keys, but we don’t want to do that.
After Hannah’s accident we think that they now understand how serious a quad accident can be. It was touch and go there for a while with how fast she could recover and stop having so many severe headaches. It shook us all up so much that I don’t think there will be any repeats with any members of the family.”
Kelly’s advice to other parents is to put rules in place and stress them. “You have to keep reminding your kids over and over if you want your parental rules observed,” she says. “Kids think quads are really stable like some kind of big tricycle, but they tip over very easily. They give kids a false sense of security. Parents should caution children about how easy it is to roll a quad.”
Communicating safety rules is the first step. Reinforcing them is the second step in accident prevention. If you want to ride a quad, be safe: Wear a helmet, slow down, and remember that quads roll over easily.
Did Hannah’s accident negatively affect her relationship with her parents? “Not at all,” says Kelly. “It was a learning experience for us all. If you don’t follow the safety rules, you risk your life. Hannah is okay. That’s the main thing and we’re thankful for that.” |
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