Text Message Led to Fatal ATV Crash That Killed Toddler

Text Message Led to Fatal ATV Crash That Killed Toddler

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Associated Press: The father of a 2-year-old who died in a weekend ATV crash said he looked down to check a text message while the boy somehow pushed the throttle, prompting the dad to fall off the vehicle before the toddler sustained fatal injuries.

Jackson Moore, 2, of Eureka was riding on a slow-moving all-terrain vehicle that his father, Nicholas Moore, 29, was driving Saturday through a wooded area of Franklin County.

Moore told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in Monday's edition that he had his son in his lap, and was traveling at a speed that allowed his brother Tony, a paramedic, to walk alongside them. The father said he looked at his cell phone and then tumbled to the ground, apparently when the child hit the throttle before the ATV ran into a tree.

"He was out of sight and I heard the boom," said Nicholas Moore. "I don't know how he held on." The child was not wearing a helmet.

Tony Moore performed CPR, but the boy was pronounced dead a short time later at St. John's Mercy Hospital in Washington.

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