NORTH WATERBORO, Maine (WGME) – A Maine teenager knows how lucky he is after a dirt bike riding session ended with a trip to the hospital when his neck hit a cable blocking the trail, badly injuring him.
Shamus Bryce was riding his dirt bike with his dad, Ron Bryce, last Tuesday evening when his neck hit a cable strung across a frequently used trail in North Waterboro. The family says the cable wasn’t there over the weekend.
“It broke and wrapped around my neck,” Shamus Bryce said. “It hurt really, really bad. I got up and started trying to get to my dad.”
His dad was riding 50 feet behind him.
“I saw my son with a cable wrapped around his neck. If he didn’t break the cable and he was going fast enough, it’d probably took his head off,” Ron Bryce said.
The family says there was nothing to warn riders the cable was there.
“It’s messed up that they didn’t have it with a sign on it or anything to show me that it was there,” Shamus Bryce said.
The teenager’s parents took him to the emergency room, where doctors said there was no permanent damage to their son’s neck.
“I feel pretty lucky that worse things didn’t happen,” Shamus Bryce said.
“He’s sore. He’ll tell you he’s not, but he’s sore. You can tell. He won’t move his neck very much,” said the teen’s mother, Lou Ann Bryce.
She says the cable could have killed her son, and she wants to warn others.
“There was nothing on the chain,” Lou Ann Bryce said. “That’s why I want to warn people. All the riders out there, hunting season is coming up, I just don’t want anybody else hurt.”
The family says it was dangerous to put the cable up without a warning, but authorities told them it is not against the law, as the land is private property. The York County sheriff, though, says it could be considered reckless conduct.
Still, in the wake of their son’s injury, the Bryces are calling for something to be done.
“Flag it, put a sign up to warn somebody, so this doesn’t happen to somebody else’s kid and have worse results. Luckily, my son didn’t get killed or hurt severely. The next guy could,” Ron Bryce said.
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