We have created this website and foundation to   always remember Sean.   We   also want to inform people of the dangers Off Road vehicles pose to children under the age of 16.   We never knew anything about them until our son Sean went to play at a friends house on October 22, 2006.   Our eight year old child was permitted to ride on an adult 500 kawasaki ATV. We were never asked permission for Sean to ride.  

  We were never asked permission for him to be 200 yards from being seen or heard.   Common sense was not a priority on this day, and the lack of common sense cost our son his life.                  

In Massachusetts it is against the law for any child under the age of 10 to ride an All terrain vehicle.   It is against the law to ride off private property, to ride an unregistered vehicle, be unsupervised, ride double and any child under 16 to ride on an adult machine. John & Wendy Gillen in our opinion broke every law Massachusetts has on the books, all punishable by a citation.   My son's life was a citation.   That is unacceptable!

  Sean was a beautiful blond hair, blue eyed devilish little boy. He was full of life and enjoyed everything life had to   give him. Sean our second child of 4 boys. Ryan our oldest, Sean looked up to, whatever Ryan liked, so did Sean.   They played hockey, baseball,   golf, sailing, and loved to be in the pool in the back yard.   They were as close as two brothers can be.   Ryan   lost his brother and his best friend,   at the age of 11.      

  Christopher three years younger, they   were double trouble.   They shared a room and slept   in the same bed most nights.   PJ our youngest adored Sean. As a newborn Sean was the only one that could make him happy. He would be the first one to get PJ out of his crib in the am and after his nap.   Many nights we found Sean asleep in the crib, he didn't want PJ to be afraid.   He loved being the big brother and he was a great big and little brother.   Sean was a leader, he had lots of friends.   His two best friends Declan Tierney & Phillip Cronin.   To say good bye to their best friend at the at   eight years old, is tough lesson to learn.  

  We miss him in everything we do and our lives will never be the same.  

On October 22, 2006 our day started out like most Saturday mornings, at hockey practice. Sean was a proud player of the Mite A hockey team.   Sean and Mark were up early and on the ice by 7:00 am.   After practice they headed to Dunkin Donuts for a cheesy egg sandwich. That was always a treat for Sean. They then headed to clean the boat and get it ready to sell it. We had just purchased a new boat, however Sean loved the little boat (his words). While they were working on the boat a call came in from a team mate for Sean to come over and play. They had made a plan in the locker room at practice that morning. Sean came home for a brief time, gave me a kiss and headed over to Tylers.

That afternoon Ryan had   a hockey game, just as Ryan's team step onto the ice an emergency call came in to the rink informing us that Sean had been in an accident. There were very little details except to get to Boston as quickly as possible, Sean was being medflighted (from 270 Rocky Pond Road in Plymouth) to Mass General Hospital. We knew it was bad, just by the tone of the police officer on the other end. Sean was taken from the Gillen's home by ambulance to a bog on Rocky Pond Road, where medflight picked him up.  It breaks by heart that he was alone during all of this.  Alone in the woods hurt, alone in the ambulance and alone in the medflight helicopter.  My baby was alone. 

A ride to Boston that took 45 minutes seemed like 4 hours. We arrived at the Emergency Room of Mass General Hospital to be told our child was in an All Terrain Vehicle Accident. We had no idea what that meant. We were brought into a family waiting room and were met by many doctors and nurses, who threw so much information at us and they needed to know what happened. We had no idea, we were not with him, he was playing at a friend's house. They told us they needed to insert a steel bolt into Sean's head to measure pressure to his brain, CPR had been performed on him and they were not sure how long he had gone without oxygen. This would help them to watch the pressure and treat him.

We were finally able to see Sean. he was being transferred from the ER to the pediatrics Intensive Care Unit (PICU). He was non responsive and looked so pale. We were in shock and so scared. The doctors and nurses were wonderful to us, but we knew deep down this was not good.     The first night was so scary, he was hooked up to a ventilator to breath for him.   He had over 20 tubes connected to him.   His eyes had sand in them for his fall.   He had a neck brace, and a steel bolt they inserted in his head.   A few hour later he started to shake and jerk his body.   We thought it was a good sign, he was moving.   It wasn't good, it was his body reacting to the loss of oxygen he experienced.     It was so hard to watch, he looked like he was having seizures.   He was given medications to help.   This continued through the night, and the next day.  

  Sean spent five days in the PICU. Each day the pressure in his head increased, on Wednesday night he got worse, medication that had helped in previous days, was no longer helping. He was sent for an MRI at 1:00am.     He returned at 3:30am   and not one doctor or nurse could look at us. Mark and I felt our legs going out from under us. Hours later we were brought into a conference room with the entire team who told us our 8 year old baby had gone an extended period of time without oxygen to his brain. He would not recover and if by the slightest chance he did he would never be our Sean. We were devastated, we held onto any and every bit of hope, the doctors must be wrong, Sean is tough, he will make it through this, he will be that miracle kid. We had Sean blessed by every priest and chaplain we could find. We prayed so much and we felt our prayers were not heard. How could this be happening to our family, our child went on a playdate.   Their job was to keep him safe, they allowed our child to put directly in harms way.   

On Thursday Morning family and close friends all came in to see Sean. Ryan and Christopher came in to see their brother hooked up to so many machines with wires and tubes everywhere. Christopher asked why he couldn't have a brain transplant, why couldn't they make him better. Chris and Ryan kissed Sean and left the room, five minutes later he went into Cardiac Arrest. It took a full team more that 5 minutes to bring him back and calm things down. We think he was telling us he had said his goodbye's to his brothers and he couldn't do this anymore. Thursday, Mark and I spent the day watching Sean get worse, he couldn't hold his temperature, he was burning up. We told him how much we loved him, how proud we were of him and how it was ok. This went on until 5:30am on October 27, 2006, Sean passed away peacefully in our arms. Four days before Halloween, while most were choosing costumes, we were choosing an outfit for his funeral.

After Sean died we did research on children and Off Highway vehicles. In 1980 recording began on children who have been victims of All Terrian Vehicle accidents. Thousands of children have died.   Hundred of thousands have been serously injured.   Children do not have the brain development under the age of 16 to understand the dangers.   They don't have the mental and physical abilities to handle the power behind these machines.   We couldn't prevent Sean being hurt, but we can prevent another child from being seriously hurt or like Sean who   died at eight years old. You can't regulate commonsense, but you can create stricter laws, with tougher penalties.   When it comes to our children there are no second chances.   

Please reach out to your State Senators and State Reps and ask them to support Sean's bill.  Senate Bill S366 is presently in the committee on Public safety.  We don't want another family to loose a child to an All Terrian Vehicle.   

Mark, Katie & The Boys