Conservation Officer Gives Safety Reminders After Deadly Snowmobile Crashes In Maine
BOSTON (CBS) -- The death of an Amesbury High School senior is the latest snowmobiling fatality in the 2018-2019 winter season.
Seventeen-year-old Troy Marden was thrown from his snowmobile after he failed to make a turn and hit a snowbank late Saturday night in Poland, Maine. "The operator of the second snowmobile attempted to render aid to the victim before going to get help. Marden was pronounced dead at the scene," said the Maine Warden Service.
Earlier Saturday, a 52-year-old woman was killed in Norway, Maine after she hit a snowbank and went airborne.
One day after the two fatalities, the Maine Warden Service reported four more snowmobiling crashes. At least ten crashes occurred across Maine and New Hampshire this weekend.
"Inattention is a big one, inexperience, and obviously, alcohol and drugs. You put that in the mix and that's where most of our accidents derive from," said Conservation Officer for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department Chris Brison.
"The tracks on the snowmobiles can strip the snow clean from the trail and it could be all ice underneath," he added.
Brison recently responded to a crash involving a local firefighter who hit a mound of ice on Lake Winnipesaukee and was thrown 75 feet. "You're not sitting in a cage like you're sitting in a car. There is no protection there, everything is exposed," Brison explained.
The firefighter, 57-year-old Brandon Quinn, suffered life-threatening injuries.
Brison recommends going on rides with tour guides first to get familiar with the trails and the snowmobile. While he knows remote trails can be worth it, he reminds riders that medical help is not just around the corner.
"We can't give any hospital care -- that could be two hours away depending on where you are located in the state. And it also depends if we can get a helicopter to land there or not."
A pregnant Gloucester woman and her unborn child were also killed in a snowmobiling crash on Feb. 9.
