Taylor Yach sustained injuries to her neck after being
clothes-lined by a steel cable while riding her ATV.
Allyson Beauregard
Taylor Yach sustained injuries to her neck after being
clothes-lined by a steel cable while riding her ATV.
Allyson Beauregard
THORNE – Taylor Yach, a teen from Arnprior who has family ties and a cottage in Ladysmith, suffered neck injuries in the afternoon of August 20 after being clothes-lined by a steel cable while riding her ATV down a private road.
According to Yach, she was travelling with a friend on the back of the ATV, going about 15 kilometres an hour down the road, which she has been used for over a decade. “She wasn’t going anywhere in particular, just for a little ride down the road. For years now, she and her dad have gone down the road to play in the puddles that seem to form there because it is right next to a swamp,” said Yach’s mother, Angela Sacavage.
Yach didn’t see the cable until the last second. “I didn’t have time to hit the brakes or jump off,” added Yach, who was thrown from the bike and landed face-first on the ground before blacking out for a couple minutes. Yach’s friend, who
sustained injuries to her arm from the cable, was able to stop the ATV and then ran to Yach to try and help her. After Yach regained consciousness, the pair drove the ATV back to the family cottage before going to the hospital. Yach was cleared for any spinal injuries and was instructed on how to care for the wound, deemed as a “cable burn”.
Sacavage said it is hard to determine whether the cable was placed there to intentionally harm someone. “It wasn’t marked at all, and there were no
visible signs or flags. It’s hard to justify why anyone would put a winch cable at neck height on any road,” she said, noting she has never seen any “no trespassing” signs along the road or been told not to use it.
“I am 100% sure the cottagers on the road wouldn’t have put the cable up without mentioning it to us or asking us not to use the road. People in the area are very friendly and welcoming, so we think this may have been someone from out of the area,” she concluded.
The police were notified of the incident and an investigation is ongoing.
