A man is dead after losing control of an ATV and being thrown from the vehicle on a rural Hardin County road, according to the sheriff's office. He was flown to a Louisville hospital for treatment but did not survive his injuries.
According to the WHAS11, deputies responded Friday to the 600 block of Puckett Road, where the man had been traveling westbound on the ATV. He lost control, drove off the roadway and was ejected, the Hardin County Sheriff's Office said. He was airlifted to UofL Hospital in Louisville, where he later died from his injuries.
Authorities have not released the man's identity. The man was not wearing a helmet at the time of the crash, according to the Hardin County Sheriff's Office, as reported by WHAS11. The Hardin County Sheriff's Office asked the community to keep the man's family and loved ones in their thoughts and prayers.
A Pattern of Deadly ATV Wrecks Across Kentucky
The Puckett Road fatality adds to a string of recent ATV deaths reported around the state. In Pike County, a 74-year-old Pikeville man died in late August after his ATV overturned on an off-road trail, with LEX 18 reporting that Kentucky State Police were notified of that crash at about 5:42 p.m. on Aug. 27. A preliminary investigation found that Billy Tackett was operating the ATV when it left the side of the trail and overturned, per the same report.
In September, WKYT reported that a 70-year-old woman died in an ATV crash in Powell County, and her grandchildren were injured, according to Kentucky State Police.
Federal Data Flags Kentucky's ATV Risk
Kentucky has repeatedly turned up in federal safety figures tied to off-highway vehicle deaths. A CPSC safety-center page states that Pennsylvania, California, West Virginia, Kentucky and Florida together accounted for 613 off-highway-vehicle deaths, more than 30 percent of such deaths nationwide, from 2018 through 2020, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. A separate CPSC annual report lists Kentucky among the states with the highest reported OHV-related fatalities in its own cited figures.
It remains unclear whether a separate WHAS11 report describing Kentucky State Police identifying 36-year-old Kevin Johnson as killed, and a 7-year-old child as seriously hurt, in an Elizabethtown crash is connected to the Puckett Road incident. No official report, case number or citation tied to the Puckett Road crash has been made public.
