BUCKFIELD – The ATV rider who broke his back last weekend after hitting a steel gate may have been riding a machine with faulty brakes, a game warden said Tuesday.
Derek Campbell, 20, of Wilton fractured his spine when he hit a gate that he couldn’t avoid.
Warden Rick Stone said Campbell may have been traveling downhill as fast as 30 to 40 miles per hour at the time. He also fractured his arm when he tumbled off the speeding ATV, Stone said.
Campbell’s passenger, Jeni-Marie Tourtelotte, 22, of Wilton, was not badly injured.
Campbell was listed in stable condition at Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, where he was treated for four broken ribs, as well as a fractured spine and the broken arm. Stone said Campbell would be released in a day or two with a back brace, and that he could move his feet.
One of the men traveling with Campbell Saturday afternoon has been charged with operating on private property, Stone said.
Michael Knowlton, 25, of Auburn, was driving one of two ATVs on property belonging to the wireless company Industrial Communications, based in Massachusetts, which owns land on Streaked Mountain, according to Stone.
“It’s the communication company’s land,” Stone said Tuesday. “They don’t want people up there on vehicles. It rips the road out,” and makes it hard to get vehicles to the mountain-top towers, he said.
Campbell’s machine had had problems with the front brake before the crash, but the rear brake had been working, Campbell told Stone during an interview at the hospital Tuesday. Neither set of brakes worked when the ATV stalled and began picking up speed down as it rolled down a hill toward the gate.
“He couldn’t get it into gear; it was freewheeling down,” Stone said. He added that he has not inspected the ATV.
The riders had taken a rocky trail to the top of the mountain then began descending on a steep gravel road that is off-limits to all-terrain vehicles, Stone said.
Knowlton and Tara Enman, riding on the lead machine, saw a sign indicating a steel gate 500 feet ahead and pulled over to the side of the road.
“The other ATV went screaming by at 30 to 40 miles per hour and wasn’t stopping,” Stone said.
Instead, Campbell and Tourtelotte crouched to drive underneath the gate, which is about four-feet off the road. The handle bars hit the gate, which then struck Campbell’s back. The gate lifted up and Tourtelotte passed underneath unscathed.
Campbell told Stone he flopped off the run-away vehicle about 50 feet later, which is also when Tourtelotte jumped off. At that point, the ATV veered off the road and stopped at an embankment.
One of the riders called for help from a cell phone.
Campbell was flown to the hospital after a helicopter landed on top of the ledge-covered mountain. He was injured about a quarter-mile from the top and had to wait at least 30 minutes to be rescued.
Tourtelotte said she saw the helicopter fly overhead once without seeing them, but another party of three managed to catch its attention and guide it back to the injured man, who was helped by Pace Rescue and Paris and Oxford fire departments.
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