An 18-year-old driver and a 13-year-old passenger were killed Wednesday afternoon when the side-by-side utility vehicle they were riding in crossed into the opposite lane on a rural Susquehanna County road, struck a tree, and rolled over, ejecting both of them. A 12-year-old girl who was also in the vehicle was seriously injured and taken to a hospital.
According to Pennsylvania State Police accounts reported by CBS Pittsburgh, the crash happened around 3 p.m. Wednesday on Butterfield Road just north of East Shore Drive in New Milford Township. The 2025 Can-Am Defender was headed north when it crossed into the southbound lane, moved onto the gravel berm, then struck a tree and rolled onto its side. The driver, identified as 18-year-old Taryn Briggs of New Milford, was ejected from the vehicle and later pronounced dead at a local hospital. A separate account from WNEP-TV places the crash slightly earlier, around 2:50 p.m.
The 13-year-old passenger, from Springville, was also ejected and was pronounced dead at the scene, per the CBS Pittsburgh report. A 12-year-old girl, also from Springville, was taken to a hospital with injuries state police described as serious; troopers have not released her exact injuries or provided an update on her condition.
A Scramble of First Responders on Butterfield Road
New Milford Fire and EMS, Barnes Kasson EMS, and the Susquehanna County Coroner's Office all responded to the scene, according to the CBS Pittsburgh account of the state police report. Dispatch records from Susquehanna County Fire/EMS Alerts show that Harford Fire and Montrose Minutemen also responded, and that command initially requested two medical helicopters before canceling the second aircraft. The scale of that response underscores how serious the crash scene was in the first critical minutes.
Open Questions About Speed, Restraints, and the Road Itself
State police have laid out the basic sequence of the crash, but several details remain unconfirmed, including the vehicle's speed at the time of impact, whether seatbelts or helmets were in use, and whether Butterfield Road was a legally designated route for off-road vehicles. Those questions matter because Pennsylvania regulations, per the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, require every ATV or UTV operator and passenger to wear a securely fastened, DOT-approved helmet, with first-offense fines running $50 to $200 for noncompliance. The same agency's guidance notes that Pennsylvania's Vehicle Code generally bars non-street-legal UTVs from public roads and highways, limiting them to designated, signed township routes or direct crossings — because off-road tires and steering systems are not built for paved surfaces.
The Can-Am Defender itself is a full-sized utility side-by-side weighing more than 1,500 pounds, built with a roll-over protection cage and seat belts at every seating position, according to manufacturer specifications from Can-Am/BRP. Those protections depend on restraints actually being used inside the cage during a rollover, which is one reason investigators' unanswered questions about seatbelt use carry weight in a crash like this one.
A Recurring Pattern in Rural Pennsylvania
This is not an isolated tragedy for the state. Data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission analyzed by Safe Kids Pennsylvania shows Pennsylvania consistently ranks among the top three states nationwide for off-highway vehicle deaths, with nearly 200 fatal ATV and UTV incidents recorded over multi-year tracking windows. Research compiled by the Iowa State Association of Counties on off-road vehicle dynamics has found that UTVs driven on paved or gravel roads face more than double the risk of major trauma and severe brain injury compared with off-road crashes, because aggressive off-road tires grip roadway surfaces in ways that can trigger sudden rollovers.
The ages of the victims also fit a documented pattern. A January report in Pediatrics in Review found that youth aged 10 to 15 experience the highest rate of pediatric off-highway vehicle injuries nationwide, with head trauma and ejections accounting for most severe and fatal outcomes. While Pennsylvania law allows youth ages 8 to 15 to operate off-road vehicles with safety certification or on parental land, Safe Kids Pennsylvania notes that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no child under 16 operate or ride as a passenger on adult-sized off-road vehicles, since these machines carry horsepower and weight that exceed younger riders' physical and cognitive capabilities.
Under state law, ATV and UTV operators or owners involved in a crash resulting in injury, death, or more than $100 in property damage must submit a formal crash report to the state within seven days, feeding into the same DCNR safety-tracking system that documents incidents like Wednesday's crash. The fatal Mercer County UTV crash in April and a fatal Boyers Road UTV collision in February both fit the same troubling trend of off-road vehicles colliding with fixed objects on rural Pennsylvania roads.
