CLEVELAND — For one North Georgia family this Thanksgiving is extra special.
That's because two of the young sons in the family are continuing to recover well after they were involved in a serious-injury dirt bike collision on the family's White County property.
May 22 started out like any other Sunday for Joe and Amanda Rivard's family.
Skylar Bassett, 13, had been riding for about 30 minutes when his brother Joey Rivard, 12, asked his mother if he could go riding as well.
"I said, 'Sure. Y'all have got about 30 minutes to ride together. Just put on your gear and go find your brother'," Amanda Rivard recalls. "He went downstairs and put on his gear and I heard the bike crank up, heard him go out. It had been about 15 minutes and I actually had gone outside and called them. And it's not unusual for them not to answer."
That in itself was not reason for Amanda and Joe Rivard to think anything was wrong because of the size of the property and the noise of the motorcycles.
But circumstances soon changed all of their lives.
Unknown to Amanda and Joe, the boys' Yamaha CCR 125 dirt bikes collided almost head-on in a heavily-wooded area of a dirt bike trail on the property.
"We were just kind of waiting on them to come in," Amanda recalls. "About five minutes later is when Skylar walked in the door."
She recalls the events of that afternoon.
"Skylar hit Joey — pretty much hit his bike head-on," Amanda relates. "Joey broke both of his arms, his wrists, all of his fingers, and then they pulled some of Skylar's plastics from his bike out of Joey's leg. It disintegrated his kneecap almost completely. He broke it in three different places. Part of his kneecap they never even found."
And things were just as serious for the older brother.
"After [Skylar] hit Joey, Joey just kind of fell to the side," Amanda relates. "Skylar kept going and ran into a tree -- and his handlebars are still shaped like that tree, going the opposite direction. Then he passed out onto his bike that he'd already been riding for 30 minutes, so it was hot. He was burned — third-degree burns just below his elbow all the way up his arm and half of his back. You could actually see the exact outline of the tailpipe and the engine casing on his back."
And despite helmets and other protective gear, both boys also suffered facial fractures.
"They both got orbital fractures in their face from where their helmets collided head-on," Amanda says. "Skylar broke his mandible [jawbone], sliced his face open, and had a pneumothorax in one lung."
Despite the training received by both parents in emergency services, the incident understandably was horrific for them.
"I was a volunteer firefighter/EMT for a few years, and that was probably the scariest moment that I've ever had in my life," Amanda recalls. "Joe took off into the woods to find Joey."
All Skylar could relay to them when they asked was that he and Joey wrecked and that Joey was still at the crash site. He couldn't provide details of whether his brother was ok, or about his condition.
Amanda shares that Joe Rivard, an area police officer, was "a voice of calm" in those terrifying moments.
Joe initially told Amanda to hold off calling 9-1-1 until he could see if Joey was hurt.
"But as soon as Skylar turned around I realized that we were going to have to call somebody," Amanda says.
When Skylar turned around, his burns and other injuries became evident.
"We came around this blind corner doing like 40 mph and just hit head-on," Skylar shares. "We both got knocked out. I struck a tree after I hit him and it happened like that," he says snapping his fingers.
Similarly, Joey has memories of the incident.
"I woke up from the wreck and I looked at my arm and saw the bone sticking out and blood, and I said, 'I'm not going to school', Joey recalls.
Skylar doesn't remember much about the crash itself, but says he knew when he regained consciousness that he had to overcome the pain he was feeling and walk to get help for his injured brother.
"I woke up and I didn't know what was going on, but I knew that I had to go get help somehow," Skylar shares. "I just saw him and tried to stay strong and just tried to go get help."
Medical personnel on scene quickly realized both boys had suffered serious injuries and needed to be airlifted to Atlanta hospitals.
Helicopters from Gainesville-based AirLife Georgia 2 and Blairsville-based AirLife Georgia 14 responded and medical flight crews immediately began care of the injured boys.
"Knowing that one needed to go to a burn center and the other one needed to go to a trauma center, it's such a long drive from us up here," Amanda says. "By the time that I would have made it to the hospital, Joey was already almost going into surgery."
Joey was airlifted from the scene in one helicopter to Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and Skylar was airlifted from the scene in another helicopter to Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.
Amanda Rivard credits the level of care provided by medical flight crews and the speed of the trips to the Atlanta hospitals with the boys' high level of recovery from very serious injuries.
"It's immensely important," Amanda says. "Being able to get them there and get the medical attention that they needed quickly probably saved more skin than possible, because obviously with burns you have to stop the burning process in order for everything to die off and be able to heal quickly later. Same thing with Joey. Joey had four surgeries the first day within two hours of landing."
Ground transport to those same facilities would have taken well over an hour.
"It took them 15 minutes from the time that they took off from the ground to be downtown with Joey, and I think about 18 for Skylar," Amanda shares. "There's just no way — we can't even make it to the center of town from our house in that amount of time."
The speed of reaching care allowed Joey especially to receive the most care possible in the shortest period of time.
"Joey had nine surgeries the first day," Amanda says, including the four that were within about two hours of landing at the hospital. "And another surgery to put a plastic eye socket in because his eye started dropping down into the broken part of his face."
Thinking back on that day, Amanda says the fear she felt was greater than any she ever experienced as a firefighter/EMT or other facets of life.
"I had lost a brother 10 years ago, and had been at the mortuary to identify his body," Amanda shares. "And he looked almost just like my son, so that was by far the scariest moment of my life."
In late October, Amanda, Skylar and Joey were able to meet one of those heroes who began care on the scene and provided treatment in the helicopter on the way to Atlanta.
Flight Paramedic Jennifer Davis works for Gainesville-based AirLife Georgia 2. Davis and other crew members were participating in a public relations event at the Habersham E-9-1-1 Children's Fun Fest in Clarkesville when the Rivard family caught up with her.
"That meant so much to me to be able to thank them for showing up that day and for the job that they do day to day for everyone in our community," Amanda says. "To be able to thank someone for saving your child's life means more to me than I could put into words."
Six months after the wreck, both boys are back in school, Joey in sixth grade and Skylar in eighth grade.
The boys, and Amanda, were featured in a short video filmed by the Kids Who Care Club at White County Middle School and edited by WCMS TV. That video was on the subject of courage and was shown to students at the school.
"They've both been back to the crash site and seen everything afterward, and helped pick up items that were left behind," Amanda says. "Everything is back to normal."
In fact, the boys have asked for four-wheelers for Christmas.
"They're excited," Amanda shares. "They actually went out [the other] weekend and rode four-wheelers for the first time since the accident, and it was nice to see them being kids again. Joe actually went out riding with them and then let them go solo a little bit later in the afternoon. There was no hesitation for either one of them."
Asked about limitations, Amanda says there are few.
"They pretty much can do anything that they had done before," Amanda says.
"Joey is going to be in the State Special Olympics running this year, God willing, he gets a little more leg strength back," Amanda says. "He's not as fast as he was. He still has a little bit of a limp."
Similarly, Skylar is back to his active life.
"Skylar, if his grades would have been a little bit better, he would have run cross country right after, but we're going to wait until spring," Amanda says. "That way he has more time to heal."
In that school video, Amanda shares what she hopes people will take from the boys' story.
"These boys have been through so much and I'm so very proud of them," Amanda says to conclude the video. "Courage is to grow up and turn out to be who you really are and not to keep your fears to yourself, but to share it with others. I hope that other people are motivated by the things that they do and that they're not afraid to share their story and they're not afraid to be who they are."
While things are back to normal, the Rivards realize just how blessed they are. While they celebrate it every day, it is especially on their minds with Thanksgiving this week.
"This year will be so different," Amanda shares. "You're used to things going on day to day and you take life for granted. This year we have so much to be thankful for — I can't even put it into words."
