Off-roading fun turns fatal in sand dunes for Newcastle boy

MOSES LAKE — A Newcastle boy is among three people who have died recently in accidents related to off-road activities in the sand dunes at Columbia Basin recreation areas.

Spencer Whitman, 10, was pronounced dead Sunday morning following an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) accident at the sand dunes near Beverly, Grant County.

Two deaths and a serious injury to a 5-year-old were reported the past weekend. At least 25 accidents resulting in injury were reported Saturday and Sunday at the Horn Rapids Off-Road Vehicle Park in Richland, where a 12-year-old boy died a week earlier.

"If we had a boxing tournament with these kinds of injuries, it'd be shut down in a hurry," said Dr. Steven J. Kincaid, a surgeon who treated some of the injured at Kadlec Medical Center in Richland.

According to witnesses, Spencer, who was wearing a helmet, lost control of the quad-runner at a high rate of speed, Deputy Coroner Lynette Henson said.

"He made a jump with the vehicle in the hardpan area of the sand dunes park," Sheriff's Deputy John Turley said. "The impact of the strike forced the 10-year-old into the handlebars and the hard ground."

The boy's parents said he was an experienced rider.

On the same day, about 15 miles to the east, David R. Row, 64, of Federal Way, collapsed while trying to dislodge his motorcycle after it got stuck in sand on a race course during a hill climb in the dunes near Royal City, Turley reported.

Speed and trauma did not appear to be involved, and Row likely had a heart attack, Henson said.

Autopsies on the bodies of Spencer and Row were pending.

In a third case, a 5-year-old boy was seriously injured while riding with his father on a recreational vehicle in the dunes eight miles south of Moses Lake. The father escaped injury, but the boy was taken to Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane for treatment for a lacerated liver, a punctured lung and severe lung bruising.

"As they traversed a large sand dune, the quad-runner flipped and both dad and son went over backward," Turley said.

A teenage boy was transferred to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle for treatment of a head injury with internal bleeding, Kincaid said.

On March 17, Blake Webb of Rathdrum, Idaho, was practicing on the Horn Rapids course when he crashed his motorcycle over a double jump and was hit by another rider, Douglas Wold, 19, of Walla Walla, who made the jump and was unable to stop after landing just in front of the fallen boy.

Four men attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) but were unable to revive Blake and he died at the scene.

"Parents may be enthusiastic [about their children riding motocross], but to me this is a public nuisance," Kincaid said.

With protective gear required for all riders at the off-road vehicle park, 25 injury crashes on a race weekend "seems like a lot," Richland fire Battalion Chief Curt Walsh said. "We consider it a dangerous sport."

More supervision of the young riders is needed, Walsh said.

"We wouldn't let these kids ride a motorcycle this way on pavement, but for some reason it is different on an ORV course," he said.