Street luging leaves boy, 16, with head injuries

A 16 year old Burlington boy is in hospital after a longboarding crash.

Aldershot residents say it was only a matter of time until someone was seriously hurt:

“We knew it was an accident bound to happen, and it did. It was terrible.”
Danforth Place in Aldershot is a popular hangout for longboarders, because both ends of the street are elevated.
Carolyn Ennest saw it happen: “from the back of me, I could hear a skateboarder coming down the hill, in front of me a green truck was coming.”
Residents say they could only watch as the boy came racing down the hill riding a longboard on his back. He sped around the corner – into the path of an oncoming truck.
“And I turned around, and I see this boy laying on his back on one of those longboards, and it went between the front tire and the back tire, right underneath the truck.”
He wasn’t wearing a helmet.
The 16 year old was taken to Hamilton General Hospital in critical condition. He was upgraded Wednesday afternoon to serious but stable.
“I think it’s just a thrill for them but they think they’re invincible, and they’re not. Hopefully they come by and see the markings on the road and see what happened.”
At Surf Paradise in Burlington, longboards are one of their biggest sellers – but the store’s Time Youldon says they encourage the use of helmets.
“Always, no matter what you’re doing, skateboarding, longboarding, you should have a helmet on, just because you can always slip out and hit your head.”
“Is a helmet going to save you if a car hits you? Maybe, maybe not, but it never hurts to have one on.”
Eyewitnesses tell me the boy was street luging, which means he was riding the board on his back, feet first. Halton police say otherwise.
Longboard experts CHCH News spoke to say, if he was in fact luging, controlling the board would be difficult.