A 55-year-old Dracut, Massachusetts man died after crashing an ATV on a trail in Fremont, New Hampshire, Saturday afternoon. David Febres was flown by helicopter to a Manchester hospital, where he was pronounced dead despite efforts to save him.
New Hampshire Fish and Game officers were called to the Rockingham Recreational Trail shortly after 2 p.m., according to WMUR. First responders, including conservation officers, Fremont police and firefighters, found the injured rider and carried him out of the area before he was flown to Elliot Hospital in Manchester. As NBC Boston reported, Febres died of his injuries at the hospital.
The crash remains under investigation, and the exact cause has not been determined. The Rockingham Recreational Trail, a popular rail-trail corridor for off-road vehicles that cuts through Fremont, has been the site of other serious crashes in recent years, as the New Hampshire Union Leader noted in its own report on Febres’ death.
A Trail With a Troubled Recent History
Just last year, a 26-year-old man suffered serious injuries in a dirt-bike crash on the same trail in Fremont. In that May 2025 incident, investigators with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department determined that speed was the primary contributing factor, according to the agency.
Speed has been a persistent theme in the department’s recent crash investigations elsewhere in the state as well. Earlier last month, a 34-year-old ATV operator from Eastham, Massachusetts, identified as Andrew Reeves, was seriously injured in a crash in Success, New Hampshire, after Fish and Game said he was traveling at a high rate of speed; he was transported to Androscoggin Valley Hospital for treatment and was later charged with unsafe speed once investigators concluded it was the primary contributing factor.
Repeated Warnings About Speed and Equipment
New Hampshire Conservation Officers have said that speed is a contributing factor in many crashes that occur throughout the state each year, a pattern the department has flagged in multiple incident reports. The agency has urged ATV riders to weigh their experience, the trail conditions, the weather and the time of day, and to proceed carefully.
The department has also stressed equipment checks in the past. Following a 2021 crash in Derry in which a 46-year-old Dracut man suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries after the rear tire of his off-highway recreational vehicle detached while he tried to navigate around a fire gate on the Rockingham Recreation Trail, officials urged riders to always complete safety checks of their equipment before heading out and to use due care and caution at all times, according to the Lowell Sun.
No details have been released about what led to Saturday’s crash that killed Febres, and investigators have not said whether speed, trail conditions or any mechanical issue played a role. The investigation into his death continues.
