Hunting/ATV accident

Even our workhorse Kodiak 700s have a front rack weight limit of 110lbs, very easy to overload the front and the steering becomes very mushy.

Because our trails are best described as "F**kin Stupid" and age is creeping up on me I have spent the last couple years trying to get my ATV perfectly balanced considering my weight, loaded to the max racks and pulling a trailer. So far I think I have reached near perfection.
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Hope your buddy makes a full recovery, crap can happen fast with an overloaded quad, ask me how I know that, I had quads for over 30 years but a few years back I sold my Yamaha grizzly 700 and went to a 700 Viking side X side, way more stable and comfortable for me at my age.
 
size of a tri-fold ramp sure makes a difference too
I cheaped out and went more-portable smaller, it is butt-puckering in anything less than ideal set-up
 
3 times I have nearly bit it hard riding my grizzly 550. It was my first atv back in 2012 but I had ridden older honda and suzuki models owned by friends in the years before that. So moderate experience i guess.
They were lower to the ground the the grizzly which I had set up for more ride height on 1 size bigger than stock tires. Yamaha set it up for me but the sales rep warned me to keep loads balanced and never load up the front end only. The grizzly has a great suspension and power steering but the steering control suffers greatly with a loaded up front end trying to travel any distance at any kind of speed.
So first time I lost control of my grizzly I was out on the ice and went to make a turn that I hoped would be like a drift and no big deal. Done it dozens of times in the past on the ice/snow but my mud lite II tires caught an edge and the bike did a nose dive and rolled. I knew I was toast so all I could do was leap as far away from the machine as I could. When I righted myself I was 30 feet from the machine and it was on it's side facing the opposite way. At least it didn't go through the 12" thick ice. My buddy heard the wipeout and saw me on the ice and ran over to help. Fortunately the bike was okay , took me a week for my body to feel better LOL
2nd was a down hill drive home from that same lake and I was goosing the throttle , having fun on the single lane , down hill 6km ride from that same lake. I came around a corner to a steeper section and didn't back off the throttle in time. The bike turned into a hockey puck and i had no control at all. It sped up to almost 30km an hour as I was headed straight for a big douglas fir a few feet off the road. I was getting ready to jump when the tires on the right side hit the snow berm at the edge of the road. The bike stopped dead and I was nearly thrown into the forest. Freaked the hell out of me as I had slid gaining speed probably 60 to 70 meters down the hill.
The last one was just the other day and my back and pelvis are still hurting enough to take some gabapentin and muscle relaxers to deal with it.
Locally here I was in a spot I know well, just above freezing , snowing and a inch or so of older snow. The mud is ridiculously slippery and not frozen yet. It's not even deep mud but it sticks like glue to everything and is literally as slippery as ice. So I'm heading around the big water hole in the trail which takes me on high level ground above the water and something kicked my front end sideways, a rock or a root, who knows but the front left tire slipped over the edge of the bank and I had no choice but to steer into it and jam the throttle. So the bike plunged almost a meter and at an angle, down into the water hole and so I wouldn't get stuck in there I just had to pin it and get out of the hole. Nearly threw me off the machine again , it was a hard drop and lurch out of the hole. Gettin to old for that sh!t LOL

Gonna spend the rest of my season in an ATV/UTV closed area and give my body a break 🤣
 
I’ve spent the last 12 or so years quadding extensively, on rough terrain and with very heavy loads, while running treeplanting crews in BC. A lot of it only comes with experience, but some lessons I’ve learned, often the hard way, are:

- Weight should be balanced, but adjusted with steep slopes - ie. if you’re climbing something steep you need more weight at the front to maintain traction. Proper attention needs to be given to securing loads and also loose straps, etc. A heavy duty tie-down strap ending up in your axle can have pretty catastrophic results at high speed, for example.

- More weight = less stability, with a downward multiplier effect on stability after a certain weight. By this I mean an extra bit of weight on an already heavy machine often makes a much larger impact on stability than you might think.

- If you’re in gnarly terrain be sure you’re able to jump off if you need to. Getting off to walk machines over tricky sections always a great move.

- cheap/low quality and/tires are a massive liability.

- Avoid riding a machine into a truck whenever possible, I straight-up ban it where I work. 1/2-1 ton trucks can be loaded while standing off to the side easily and effectively with a little practise. Same goes with controlled unloading. High and very avoidable rate of accidents associated with loading/unloading in my experience.

- Complacency kills - accidents happen when you’re not paying attention, thinking about other things, or on easy terrain. Likely a contributing factor with OP’s buddy I’d expect.

- If you’re riding on a radio-controlled logging road either have a handheld and know how to use it or understand the need to be extremely careful. I’ve lost count of how many ATVs I’ve nearly flattened in my truck who have been on the wrong side of the road / out of control around corners / not paying attention/ drunk, etc etc. These encounters seem to happen a lot during hunting season.

- having gears offers a massive advantage in control and thus safety vs. high/low ranges or whatever other hokey stuff you can get. Honda all the way.

- high speed on roads etc much safer in 2wd. Front end tends to roll in 4wd at speed and on smooth(er) surfaces, especially when wheels are canted.

Prob forgetting some other important stuff but🤷🏼‍♂️ Rubber side down everyone.
 
He Posted this today:

"I’d like to take a moment to send a very large thank you to the couple who came to my assistance in the woods up by long Mallory when I lost control of my 4wheeler. To the doctors and nurses at Bancroft Hospital. To the helicopter crew that delivered me to KGH along with all the doctors and nurse’s who have helped me deal with a broken arm. Broken ribs. Laceration to my kidney All of these people are amazing Thank you again."

He thought he was getting out today, but nope.

I was told it was his spleen, but now he says kidney. I'll have to get talking to him. I think he's still doing a lot of sleeping.
 
andyp69420 said:
Prob forgetting some other important stuff but🤷🏼‍♂️ Rubber side down everyone.
Click to expand...
Sit the hel down! when backing!
4 serious incidents over the years, the operator standing up in-advertently pinned the throttle with their right thigh against the fun trigger and reversed full-speed with no control, 2 on quads and 2 on snowmobiles, 1 coming out of a truck box

even saw this happen on an episode of North Shore Rescue as a responder backed up a quad in a parking lot, 30 feet backwards with a 90 deg turn before the clip was cut short
 
boxhitch said:
Sit the hel down! when backing!
4 serious incidents over the years, the operator standing up in-advertently pinned the throttle with their right thigh against the fun trigger and reversed full-speed with no control, 2 on quads and 2 on snowmobiles, 1 coming out of a truck box
Click to expand...
Jesus, that's a terrifying prospect!
 
I had one of my geos named Max, load 4 boxes of HQ rock core on the front rack of a 2002 Suzuki 400 quad. Despite our training everyone to even out their loads front to back.

Then he rides it down a steep slope.........

It went end over end and fortunately he was not hurt.

For the next five years no one called him Max. We called him Crash............
 
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