In the incident that occurred near Namakanta, an out-of-state party of five was traveling west when one of the snowmobiles handlebars were broken and could no longer be steered, according to Warden Mike Morrison. Stephen Gould, 33, of Westfield, Mass., was towing the broken down sled, with its driver, name not known, riding the snowmobile. The section of road was plowed and shared with logging traffic. An L&K Logging truck out of Brownville approached the ground coming down a hill, and Gould swung right to avoid the vehicle. Unfortunately, the rider on the broken down sled was unable to steer out of the truck's path entirely, hitting the front wheel of the rig, Morrison reported.

The impact threw the driver from the sled, and he is believed to have sustained a broken leg, Morrison said. Mayo Ambulance service reponded to the scene and transported the injured party to the Millinocket hospital. The truck sustained minor damage but the snowmobile, a recent model Polaris Indy, was totalled, Morrison said.

The second incident occurred at 10:20 a.m. on ITS 85 in Moosehead Junction Twp. Warden Troy Dauphinee investigated the accident. A group of four sledders were stopped on the trail to remove a tree that had fallen across the travel path. At the same time, a second group of sledders approached from the other direction. The initial driver of the oncoming sleds slowed to a stop when he saw the tree and second party of sledders, but the second and third drivers were blinded by the snow thrown in the air and came upon the scene too late to stop safely. The first sled veered left and the second sled veered right, Dauphinee said.

The driver of the sled veering left was David Carmel, 48, of Westfield, Mass. He fell off his snowmobile before it hit a sled in the stopped party. Both sleds sustained minor damage to the front cowlings. Carmel was not seriously injured.

The driver of the sled veering right was Jeremy Morley, 26, also of Westfield, Mass. His snowmobile hit the downed tree and he was launched forward, hitting Stephen Small, 58, of Bingham. Small suffered a broken leg and was transported from the scene by the Greenville Fire and Rescue on a wilderness rescue sled. He was later transferred to a Waterville hospital, Dauphinee said. Morley's sled, a 2008 Skidoo, suffered approximately $800 dollars in damage, accordng to Dauphinee.

"Speed was definitely a factor," the warden stated. The third accident occurred Saturday morning at approximately 9:30 a.m. on Moosehead Lake in Greenville, just beyond Mile Light. Spencer Gould, 37, of Portland, was well ahead of his party of three when he hit a rock pile and his sled went airborne. According to Warden Mike Favreau, the investigating officer, the sled then dumped its passenger to the right.Gould was taken to Charles A. Dean for evaluation. It is believed he suffered a broken collar bone, Favreau reported.

The victim never saw anything coming, Favreau said, and he admitted to going at a very high rate of speed. In fact, Gould, as have a number of other sledders Favreau has interviewed over the past few weeks, have stated they come to Maine, which has no speed limit, "because they have a need to speed," he said.

"It's a dangerous situation and I don't know what we are going to do about it," Favreau said.
"This content originally appeared as a copyrighted article in the Tuesday, March 25, 2008 edition of the Moosehead Messenger and is used here with permission."