Daylin Nason

On Dec. 6th 2009 I was at work as a Pediatric Trauma nurse when I received a call from my oldest son that my 2 yr old grandson had been in an accident. I knew he was always in a car seat and thought "how bad can it be?" Then the encode from the ambulance came over the radio that it was a level 1 trauma (the worst). I was there when he arrived. He had been a passenger on an ATV hit by a truck. He sustained a skull fracture with a small bleed, a grade 4 liver laceration, a kidney contusion, a fracture of his right arm requiring surgery, and a lot of "road rash" which is like a burn. He spent 6 days in the ICU in so much pain that he cried every time he was moved. He had a blood transfusion for internal bleeding from his liver and underwent surgery for his arm on day 5 when he was finally stable. He came to stay with me on day 8 only to return 7 days later for a bone infection in his arm. He then underwent 4 more surgeries to clean the infection and replace the 5 pins that were to hold his bones together while they healed. Yet the worst was cleaning and bandaging his road rash. It was so painful for him.

It has been just over a year now and though he has been fortunate enough to heal he will always have the scars and decreased range of motion in his right arm. His whole world changed because of the bad decisions of someone else.

As of yet there are no laws governing the use of ATV's in SC. I do not mean to say that a law would change what happened to my grandson but it may get enough education into the general public to make people think before they place young people on an adult sized vehicle. If you are in SC.... please support Chandler's Law. Although the law is not perfect it is a great start to getting public awareness about the severity of ATV injuries and the importance of knowing safety measures to take for those older children. I have seen many children come through our trauma center not so "lucky". Keep your young children off ATV's.

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