The Winnipeg Free Press Online Edition
Boy killed after ATV he was driving rolls
Dies in father’s arms on farm south of cityWed Sep 5 2007
By Gabrielle Giroday and Joe Paraskevas
submitted photo
Graham Siemens died after the ATV he was driving hit a patch of uneven ground and rolled.
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NoAn eight-year-old boy died in his father’s arms Sunday after the all-terrain vehicle he was driving rolled over three times on a farm south of Winnipeg, RCMP said Tuesday.
Graham Siemens was at the controls of an ATV in the Rural Municipality of Morris, about 65 kilometres south of Winnipeg, police said.
Another family member and a friend were driving two other ATVs at the same time. Tuesday, the boy’s father said the child was a devout Christian who had a strong faith and a love of God.
Although he said his family was devastated by the boy’s death, Wes Siemens said he supported his child’s use of ATVs.
“He was a very, very huge part of our family… Graham did have a relationship with Jesus Christ. Every evening, you could hear it in his prayer, talking with Jesus,” said Siemens.
“You can tell yourself not be sad for him because he is in a better place… it would be worse if we didn’t have the assurance of (God’s) salvation.
“If there’s one message you can get out there, it’s that everybody needs to be sure of where their soul is going when they’re dead.”
The child’s ATV is believed to have hit uneven ground and rolled over, said RCMP Sgt. Davy Lee, commander of the RCMP’s Morris detachment.
The boy was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident.
His father said that, while viewing the accident was difficult, he was glad he believed his son was in heaven. ATVs for children should not be prohibited, he said.
“I wish I could do some things differently… well, we chose to allow it,” said Siemens, who said Graham was one of four children.
“I do know that (the children) enjoyed (ATVs) immensely, and to throw out a blanket statement that four wheelers and dirt bikes are terrible things, I would be very disappointed with that.”
The boy was among family when he died, Siemens said.
“I saw him at the scene, I saw him on the ground, I saw him when his soul went out of his body,” he said. “It was a terrible thing, I have an unbelievable pain for having lost my son.”
RCMP were called to the scene and transported the boy to Morris Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.“People in the community are devastated by this,” said Lee. “He was a young fellow. It’s been devastating for the family,” Lee added, “and it certainly has impacted this community.”
The incident provoked an angry reaction from Mike Waite, executive director of Safety Services Manitoba, a private, not-for-profit organization that looks into road and occupational safety and training issues.
Waite said two years ago, Safety Services was part of a group that included police and licensing stakeholders that submitted a brief to the provincial government.
They asked the government to establish tougher standards around the licensing and training of drivers of off-road vehicles such as ATVs and snowmobiles, and the enforcement of any new legislation.
“It has not yet been acted upon,” Waite said of his group’s confidential brief.
Currently, anyone 14 years old and under can ride an ATV in the province, as long as there is supervision and the driver remains on private property, Waite said.
As soon as a driver reaches a road, he or she requires a motor vehicle driver’s licence to continue.
Rules governing ATV use vary from province to province. Canada has the highest per capita use of ATVs in the world, according to 2004 data from the Canada Safety Council, a national not-for-profit safety organization.
About 2.5 million Canadians ride ATVs and about 850,000 own one.“A lot of people lose sight of the fact that this is a dangerous vehicle,” Waite said. “It shouldn’t be in the hands of children. They don’t understand the risks.”