According to the boy’s older brother, Garret left to take out the trash and drove the ATV around a barn located about 75 yards from the family’s home. The brother went to look for Garrett after he failed to return for about half an hour. After the boy found his brother pinned underneath the overturned Polaris, he ran back to the house to tell his father what had happened.

When first responders arrived at the farm about 1 p.m., they found that the boy’s father, Christopher Malone, had lifted the ATV off of his son and was performing CPR on him.

Medics airlifted the boy to Christus St. Michael Hospital in Texarkana, where he succumbed to his injuries.

The staggering number of children who die each year in ATV-related accidents is one of the reasons propelling major changes in the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission’s governance of off-road vehicles. Earlier this month, the CPSC announced that it had found a draft of safety standards proposed by the Recreational Off-Highway Vehicle Association (ROHVA) “did not adequately address the deaths and injuries associated with ROV rollovers and collisions.”

CPSC Chairman Inez Tenebaum, a staunch child safety advocate, urged all ATV drivers and passengers “to strap on a helmet, use the seat belt, know the terrain, and never allow anyone under 16 to drive these vehicles.”

According to Concerned Families for ATV Safety, more than 40,000 children are seriously injured and killed in ATV accidents every year.

SOURCE: Yamaha Rhino Rollover › ATV rollover kills Arkansas boy

According to the lawsuit, the rollover occurred on “relatively flat terrain.” The vehicle tipped over on the passenger side where the plaintiff was seated.

Like many other lawsuits pending against Yamaha in the Unites States, the suit filed in Texarkana claims that the Rhino “was placed in the stream of commerce in a defective condition, unreasonably dangerous to the users thereof, and not fit for its intended use and reasonably foreseeable purposes.”

The suit also claims that warnings and operating instructions for the Rhino were negligently inadequate.

The plaintiff seeks damages for health care expenses, physical pain and suffering, mental anguish, physical disability and impairment, disfigurement, lost wages, loss of wage earning capacity, loss of consortium, loss of household services, pre- and post-judgment interest.

46 deaths and hundreds of injuries in the U.S. have been attributed to the Yamaha Rhino’s defective design and performance. The unusually high number of deaths and injuries linked to Yamaha’s signature UTV prompted the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission to recall the vehicles last March. Owners may take their Rhinos to their local dealership to have a series of safety improvements installed. No new vehicles are to be sold until the same upgrades have been completed.

More than 200 product liability lawsuits have been filed in U.S. courts by Rhino victims and their families.

SOURCE: Yamaha Rhino Rollover › Texas woman seeks damages for injuries sustained in Rhino rollover