DeKain Abnee, 10, talks to his brother, 12-year-old Jaiden Willoughby, who sits on the all-terrain vehicle Jaiden was driving when it wrecked, sending him to a hospital for brain surgery. His parents "recently requested an interview with the media," reports Jim Warren of the Lexington Herald-Leader. "They said they wanted to speak out about the potential dangers of ATVs, which have killed at least 17 people and injured 129 so far this year in Kentucky, and warn parents to take precautions. ... "ATVs have become an integral part of the landscape and culture all across much of rural Kentucky," and many other states, we hasten to add.Warren developed the story after attending a seminar on agriculture and child safety sponsored by the National Farm Medicine Center and the National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety at the Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation in Wisconsin, and the College of Public Health and the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky.
In a companion story, Warren reports, "Although ATV injuries and fatalities in rural Kentucky have received wide press coverage in recent years, agricultural experts say they represent only part of the picture when it comes to health threats for youngsters on the state's farms. . . . Farm youngsters traditionally perform tasks and handle responsibilities that, in other settings, would be considered strictly off limits, says Robert McKnight, director of the Southeast Center for Agricultural Health and Injury Prevention" at UK.
"We wouldn't consider it an acceptable risk for children to be running around on an assembly line floor, or working around a diesel locomotive switching yard," McKnight told Warren. "But traditionally we've found it acceptable that children on the farm can do tasks around heavy machinery, large animals and potentially toxic chemicals." (Read more) (Herald-Leader photo by Charles Bertram)
No comments:
Post a Comment