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WOODBINE -- A 14-year-old boy died Saturday when he was thrown from
a dirtbike and injured his neck while riding in
an isolated, former trash dump called "the pit," a place a borough
councilman said is plagued by people who ignore no-trespassing signs.
Daniel Taylor, of 13th Avenue in the Dorothy section of Weymouth Township,
Atlantic County, a student in the Buena Regional school system, died shortly
after the 12:15 p.m. accident, State Trooper Tom Burns said.
Rescuers found the teen off the bike when they arrived. Doctors at
Burdette-Tomlin Memorial Hospital in Cape May
Court House pronounced him dead minutes later, Burns said. It was unclear
how the accident occurred or who notified
police.
"It's been posted before. Once a week we have a guy go out there and
put up signs that get knocked right down," Borough Councilman Harry Ciabantoni
said as he entered a rescue-squad dinner here Saturday night. "It's
municipal property. The borough does own property back there."
"There" is an area off Fiddler Hill Road near the Woodbine Airport.
Locals call it "the pit" dozens of acres of rough, scrub-pine-covered ground
with a set of moguls -- small hills carved out of sand piles -- at either
end. There were no barricades or posted warnings obviously visible there
late Saturday.
The eerie landscape is criss-crossed with thousands of tracks from
motorcycles and other all-terrain vehicles. In the fading
twilight Saturday, a man helped his two children load their bikes on
a trailer behind his pickup. People have been riding
there since he could remember he said, recalling other serious accidents.
It was unclear who Taylor was with or how he got from Dorothy to Woodbine.
The boy's mother, who declined to provide her first name, said late
Saturday night that Daniel "was doing what he loved. He'd been doing it
since he was 5 or 6." He was with friends, she said. "The other boys did
all they could. My son was riding responsibly. It was an accident."
As Ciabantoni spoke Saturday night about the local government's efforts
to police the area, borough resident Ralph Roxborough, 31, stood nearby.
Later, Roxborough, who rides in the area almost daily, confirmed that
as soon as signs go up, people knock them down and keep going.
"I've been going back there since I was 7 or 8 years old. It's the
old dump," Roxborough said. The borough puts up signs that are ignored
or removed, he added. There are numerous ways into the area -- too many
to effectively block it off or police it, he said.
Ciabantoni said it is too early to tell what the borough will do in
the wake of Taylor's death. Mayor Bill Pikocycky could not be reached for
comment.
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