W.Va. teen critically injured in motorcycle crash

August 14, 1997

By CLYDE FORD

Staff Writer, Charles Town

KEYES FERRY ACRES, W.Va. - A 16-year-old Keyes Ferry Acres boy was critically injured Wednesday evening when he wrecked an off-road motorcycle while making a jump off an embankment at Keyes Ferry Park, witnesses and officials said.

Dock Workman, 16, was flown to Fairfax Hospital from Jefferson Memorial Hospital.

Hospital spokeswoman Teresa McCabe said Workman suffered multiple injuries.

The accident occurred about 6:13 p.m. Wednesday.

A group of teenagers met at the park and Workman asked another boy if he could ride his dirt bike motorcycle, said Rhi Weller, 15, of Keyes Ferry Acres.

Workman was on the motorcycle for just a short time when he rode it down a hill and up an embankment, said Jeremy Kincaid, 16, of Blue Ridge Acres, W.Va.

The witnesses estimated he was about 15 feet in the air when he lost control.

"The front end went down and so did he," Kincaid said.

Workman was not wearing a helmet, the witnesses said.

Sgt. Robert Shirley of the Jefferson County Sheriff's Department said Workman landed about 40 feet from where the motorcycle left the embankment.

The teens ran to his aid immediately and called for an ambulance.

"He wasn't even talking. He wasn't breathing right," Weller said.

A Blue Ridge Mountain Fire Co. ambulance arrived within nine minutes of being dispatched to the park, located east of the Shenandoah River near the Virginia line.

The ambulance crew put him on a backboard and was loading him into the ambulance when the boy began to struggle, said Blue Ridge Mountain Fire Co. Ambulance Chief Lenny Lehman.

The injured boy was unaware of what he was doing, according to Lehman. His aggression was a result of the head injury he suffered, Lehman said.

Still, it made it more difficult for the emergency medics to treat him. Workman was strapped down, but seven different times managed to get the restraints off and sit up, medics said.

He calmed down once they managed to get him into the ambulance, but the ambulance was then stopped by a train passing through Charles Town, Lehman said.

The ambulance arrived at the hospital about 6:55 p.m.

About a dozen of Workman's friends and family gathered outside the hospital as doctors worked to stabilize him.

They watched white-faced as an unconscious Workman was wheeled out on a stretcher to the helicopter waiting in the parking lot.

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