A Hayden woman and her son are on a long road to healing and recovery after an ATV crash on Memorial Day.

“We had been riding all weekend. It was me and my son on one quad and my sister-in-law and my niece on the other,” Sara Weiss said. “We were trying to get back to camp to make burgers for dinner.” 

The group had driven along Bunco Road and was near mile marker 14 when Weiss’s sister-in-law drove in front of her. 

"Her hat flew off and she turned around,” Weiss recalled. “When we came around the corner, I had the choice it was to hit them or try to divert.” 

When she tried to avoid hitting them, she hit a stump, and a piece of its brush got stuck in the ATV's wheel well.

“It spun sideways into the bank, and the ATV rolled with both of us," Weiss said. "My son flew off before I did and then I landed."

The impact of the landing rendered Weiss unconscious.

“I don’t remember, this is what everyone else told me because I hit pretty hard when we hit that bank,” Weiss said. 

The quad rolled over, hit her 11-year-old son Bentley’s leg and bounced, landing on Weiss.  

“I was pinned under it and I was out for what they think is about five minutes,” Weiss said. “She tried to get it off of me, tried to get me awake. She tried to roll the quad back off, she tried to push it and it wouldn’t move. She finally had to drive it off of me.” 

The pain in her son's leg was so severe that he couldn’t contain the screams. 

When she regained consciousness, she bounded into action. 

“My goal was to get him off that mountain,” Weiss said. “I picked him up and held him like a baby, I got back on that broken quad and drove the mile and a half back to camp.”  

She fought to keep Bentley conscious, asking him questions about his friends, school and Fortnite to try to keep him from going into shock. 

They were able to get him to Kootenai Health, and it took her almost an hour to realize that her injuries needed attention. 

"He was my priority, and all of a sudden, when he started getting care, I realized I was not OK," Weiss said. 

Bentley was airlifted to Seattle with his dad, and Weiss spent half a day in the hospital. She has a radial break in her right shoulder and herniated half the discs in her back. 

Weiss is getting an MRI on her knee to see if it’s the ACL or MCL that was damaged. 

She and Bentley are now home with the rest of the family, and he's officially out of a cast and in a walking boot. 

Because he can’t put weight on his leg, his grandmother sent him a scooter from Wisconsin.

For Weiss, the main takeaway from the crash is to wear a helmet. The family now keeps a store of helmets of all sizes so all family members can use them whenever they go for an ATV ride. 

“It was the last night, we could have just waited until the next morning,” Weiss said. 

She is grateful to friends and family for keeping the kids entertained and helping with meals, especially since she’s lost the ability to use her right arm. 

“I’m a server by trade, so unfortunately, if I’m unable to go to work, I don’t get paid,” Weiss said.  

In the meantime, her family has become a one-income household, as her husband, Bryan, has worked to keep the family afloat during her and Bentley’s recoveries. 

She works each day to improve her abilities so she can return to driving and being more mobile. 

“It's going to be a while before I can physically use my right arm to do my job, so I’m training myself to use my left side to do what I would do with my right side,” Weiss said. 

A GoFundMe account has raised $2,805 toward a goal of $18,000. Donations are welcome.