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Mr . BARNARD . Dr . Fine , we are delighted to have you with us today , and we will hear your testimony at this time .

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STATEMENT OF PHILIP R . FINE , PH . D . , M . S . P . H . , DIRECTOR OF RE

SEARCH , SPAIN REHABILITATION CENTER , UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA , BIRMINGHAM , AL Dr . FINE . Good morning , and thank you , Mr . Chairman .

And thank you , Congressman Erdreich , I appreciate that very much .

I had been asked to indicate that by way of background the group with which I work at the University of Alabama at Birming ham . I have authored or co - authored over 135 published scientific articles , and our research team , with its emphasis in spinal cord injury and accident and trauma epidemiology , has r

ap proximately $ 13 million in scientific research grant funds over the past 10 years , the time during which I have been affiliated with the University of Alabama at Birmingham .

Because of our extensive experience in the acute care , treatment , rehabilitation , long - term management and prevention cord injuries , my colleagues and I became alarmed some months ago when we realized we were seeing a disproportionately high number of spinal cord injuries resulting from three - wheeler or ATV crashes . Our index of suspicion regarding the disproportion ate health and safety risks associated with operation of ATV ' s was so great that one of my faculty colleagues , who is a board - certified specialist in both pediatrics and in rehabilitation medicine , began reviewing some of his records ; and based on those findings we launched a more thorough investigation of all our patient records at the UAB Spinal Cord Injury Center .

We found that between September 1983 and July 1984 we cared for five patients whose spinal cord injuries resulted from ATV crashes . Three of these victims broke their necks and became qua draplegics . They have little or no use of their arms or legs , of their bladders or their bowels , their breathing muscles or the like . The two other patients broke their backs and became paraplegics . Al though one of our patients , Jack Abrams , has regained his ability to walk because of his very low level spinal cord injury , Jack is the exception rather than the rule . But it is my understanding that he felt so strongly about the dangers of ATV ' s that he traveled here today to tell you of his own personal story . The other is confined to a wheelchair and has only limited , nonfunctional use of his lower extremities .

I hasten to emphasize that while I have described those who became spinal injured and survived , one of our patient ' s brothers who was just 11 and who was riding with our patient on the same vehicle , died at the scene of their crash . A third child riding aboard the same ATV sustained multiple orthopedic injuries . Moreover , I have described only the spinal cord injuries and not the spectrum of serious associated injuries that these young riders experienced or sustained .

Beyond this , our statistics like other statistics of this kind have not documented the hundreds , perhaps thousands , of serious inju ries that result from crashes on these vehicles . Our statistics focus