Utah teenager injured on ATV urges others to wear helmets
September 16th, 2009 by Kurt Niland
According to the Utah Department of Health, “during the summer months (May through August), more children and young adults were hospitalized for ATV injures (339) than were hospitalized for all forms of intentional injury (assault, gunshot, stabbing, etc. [224]).” One of those young adults, 19-year-old Morgan Olson, wants to use her own example to promote the importance of wearing a helmet when driving on or riding an all-terrain vehicle.
According to KSL, an NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City, Olson hopped onto the back of a friend’s ATV last September and went for a ride. Her friend lost control of the vehicle, and in the accident, Olson, who was not wearing a helmet, struck her head.
Olson’s mother Kim Laird told KSL that emergency workers said her daughter had actually died at the scene. Olson spent nearly a month in a coma. Now, a year after the accident, she spends her days in rehab trying to relearn the basic, everyday functions that most people take for granted: walking, talking, eating, and even blinking, too.
“It injured the motor skills in the right side of her brain, that operates the opposite side of her body,” Laird explained to KSL. “I really do believe if she had a helmet on she would not be in the condition she’s in,” Laird said.
Olson warned other ATV and motorcycle riders to wear their helmets. “I’ve suffered enough. I wouldn’t want anyone to suffer as much as I have,” she told KSL.
Olson and her family hope for a full recovery from the debilitating effects of the traumatic brain injury. “I want to be … to get up, to go to my car and go to the mall and go shopping,” she told KSL.
The Utah Department of Health says that at the time of injury, only 29 percent of seriously injured Utahns under the age of 18 were wearing a helmet as state law requires. Utah law does not require people age 18 and older to wear helmets while operating or riding on an ATV.
For the full story and a video of Morgan Olson’s story, click here.