Safety advocates, physicians worry about rising number of kids hurt in ATV crashes

A growing number of Maritime children were seriously hurt in all-terrain vehicle incidents last year and child safety advocates say it's time for stricter rules.

A growing number of Maritime children were seriously hurt in all-terrain vehicle incidents last year. And as hospitals elsewhere in Canada report a similar wave, child safety advocates say it’s time for stricter rules for the off-road vehicles.

Physicians report that children injured in ATVs, or quads as they’re broadly known, are often badly hurt. Twenty per cent of cases they see involve head injuries, which can result in lifelong complications or death.

Although ATV injuries can happen at any age, data shows children are overrepresented. Children under 16 years of age account for nearly one quarter of ATV-related deaths in Canada, according to the Canadian Paediatric Society’s position statement on preventing injuries from all-terrain vehicles.

Injured children are often treated in the emergency department or, when their condition is more serious, they are admitted to pediatric intensive care units. In some cases, children do not even make it to the hospital and die from their injuries. Last year, IWK Health in Halifax, the major pediatric trauma centre in the Maritimes, saw increases in ATV-related ICU trauma admissions, rising to the highest level since it began tracking such admissions 31 years ago.

“This increase is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Chris Soder, a pediatric intensive care physician at IWK Health, which typically sees just one ATV intensive care case per year but had four in 2021.

Pediatric hospitals in Quebec and Ontario are seeing a similar pattern, according to hospital trauma directors.

In Montreal, there are more cases, injuries are more severe and they involve younger children, Debbie Friedman of the Montreal Children’s Hospital said in an email. She suggested COVID-19 restrictions on organized sport may have been a factor that led to children riding more often.

Her hospital’s number of ATV-injured patients nearly doubled from 16 in 2020 to 31 in 2021, according to data from the Canadian Hospitals Injury Reporting and Prevention Program. Last year’s numbers were well above the hospital’s average since 2000 of 23 ATV injuries per year.