James Anderson

I’ll never forget the overwhelming love we felt when James was born on October 18th, 1989. He was a dream come true and continued to be a dream come true until the day he died on August 8th, 2004 at the age of 14 years.

James was by all accounts an exceptional child. His friend Mike wrote of him in a memory book. ”You taught me a lot, even if you didn’t realize it. You taught me of life, of nature and of purity.” James was so happy, so gifted, so kind and honest.

It’s just impossible that all he was ended on a rainy morning in August.

James left for New Hampshire with a group of friends on august 7th. On august 8th we received a phone call from one of the kids on the trip. The message said our son had been in an accident and had been taken to the hospital unconscious. James was already dead but the family he was with left the MD at the emergency room to deliver that message.

Terrified we jumped into the car and headed to New Hampshire. When we contacted the hospital in New Hampshire we were told to pull our vehicle to the side of the road. A voice on the other end of the line told us James was dead.

The parent James was vacationing with made a decision that was fatal to my son. He turned a 700 pound 500cc ATV that could travel highway speeds over to my child. That ATV crashed into a tree on a backwoods trail.

Beautiful James died alone. I’ll never know if my son suffered. Did he call out to me in pain? What were his last thoughts? James had never ridden anything but a bicycle before that weekend.

I never got to say goodbye to the child I love.

Adult sized ATVs and children are to often a deadly mix. Machines that travel highway speeds with no seat belts, airbags or steel enclosure and weigh between 500 and 700 pounds are not toys. The 500cc ATV my son rode killed him. That’s forever. Our hearts are broken, that’s forever too.

Carolyn, James’s mother

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