17-Year Old Maine Boy Dies In Snowmobile Accident On Sebec Lake
February 2, 2008
This in from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife:
SEBEC, Maine – A 17-year-old boy from Atkinson died Friday night when riding his snowmobile to a friend’s house for a sleepover.
Adam Brown, of Atkinson, drowned when his snowmobile fell through thin ice near the East End Outlet of Sebec Lake. This area of the lake is considered to be dangerous in the winter because the flow of water there lessens the opportunity for solid ice formation.
“Water goes through the dam there,†according to Warden Daniel Carroll Jr. of the Maine Warden Service, who investigated the accident. “One day you’ll have ice and the next day you’ll have open water.â€
Mr. Brown spoke to his family by cell phone around 5 p.m. when he was in Sebec Village. He had set out earlier to ride from his Atkinson home to Parsons Landing Road in Sebec, Carroll said.
When Mr. Brown did not arrive at his friend’s house, his family was notified and they attempted to reach him by cell phone. They got no response and contacted law enforcement to report him as missing.
The Maine Warden Service was notified at 9:45 p.m. Friday. Warden Carroll and Warden Mike Morrison set out on snowmobiles to search for Mr. Brown, and he was located at 6:30 a.m. today. (Saturday, Feb. 2).
“He was located in a place which had snowmobile tracks going to it but not leaving,†Carroll said.
Because of the thin ice conditions, the wardens needed to switch from snowmobiles to an airboat. Mr. Brown’s sled and gear were found first in eight feet of water, and Mr. Brown was located a short time later.
“He was on a dangerous section of the lake and the weather was extreme,†Carroll said. “It was raining even though it was 20 degrees out. So the rain was freezing on your windshield as you were riding and you had to keep clearing it off.â€
Mr. Brown’s family was notified of Adam’s death Saturday morning, and he was transported to a local funeral home.
Mr. Brown’s death is the second fatality of this year’s snowmobile season. On Jan. 4, a Kennebunk man was killed when riding on a shared trail in Sanford.
Posted by Tom Remington
Most Commented Posts
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
We feature the latest news, events and politics effecting the sports of hunting, fishing, and all outdoor activities in North America.
You just hate to hear of such a young person having their life snuffed out so tragically.
The tragic thing is that the boy probably knew better than to ride across that portion of the lake – I feel for his family, we went through a similar loss with some good friends of ours a few years ago.
This kind of tragedy is always sad and in our efforts to deal with it, we often state that it was unnecessary or avoidable.
Let’s hope that we can all learn from such experiences.
Our thoughts and prayers for the family. So, sad!
That’s so sad. We have warnings about riding snowmobiles out on the ice here all the time. A lot of our inland lakes you can ride across, but there are those spots which are dicey.
I really hate it when people lose their lives in senseless ways like this.