Ryan Decker and his friends didn’t see the 20-foot rock embankment that their four-wheel, all-terrain vehicles crashed down in the early morning darkness of June 8.
Decker, 25, died of massive head injuries a day later at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, making him the second person to die in an all-terrain vehicle accident on the North Olympic Peninsula in less than a year.
Matthew Edwards, 20, of Port Angeles, was killed in August 2002 when his all-terrain vehicle hit a tree after going over an embankment off Little River Road
The dramatic increase in deaths in four-wheel all-terrain vehicle accidents is being studied by federal regulators.
In addition to the two deaths dozens of others have suffered injuries ranging from minor to serious in accidents across the North Olympic Peninsula.
Thousands of off-road riders seeking an easy way to navigate the backcountry call Clallam and Jefferson counties home.
A decade after three-wheel all-terrain vehicles were banned as unsafe, federal consumer-safety regulators are investigating the causes of ATV-related injuries, which more than doubled between 1997 and 2001.
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