John E. H. McDonald, 23, had been convicted of misdemeanor driving while intoxicated in a nonjury trial.

David J. Munter, 32, of North Tonawanda, was killed in the Dec. 21, 2008, crash at 3:30 a. m. on Erie Avenue near Wurlitzer Drive. McDonald’s 1993 Cadillac collided head-on with Munter’s snowmobile, which was in the wrong lane in the storm. Munter flew over the hood of the car and crashed through the windshield into McDonald, who suffered a serious head injury.

Police measured McDonald’s blood-alcohol level at .12 percent, while tests on Munter’s blood showed a .25 percent blood-alcohol content and positive results for cocaine.

According to the Houghton County Prosecutor’s office, 26-year-old Christopher Puuri has been charged with negligent operation of a snowmobile causing serious injury or death.

On March 6, Puuri was driving a snowmobile across a clearing near the Portage Township Snowmobile Club.  He collided with another sled, killing 21-year-old Amanda Briggs of Lake Linden.

Puuri is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on April 30.?

Three and a half months of uncertainty came to end Tuesday night when a discovery confirmed what many had long feared: teenage snowmobiler Richard “Shaw” Jackson had plunged into the frigid waters of China Lake on his way home from work.

Jackson’s body was found by two fishermen around 6 p.m. Tuesday in the west basin of the lake, in an area known locally as “The Narrows,” according to Deborah Turcotte, spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. The warden service announced the discovery late Tuesday night.

Jackson, 18, was a junior at Erskine Academy in South China, where he was known as “Shaw.” He had been missing since the night of Jan. 1.

At Erskine, students dealt with the news during the school day on Wednesday in different ways, according to Assistant Headmaster John Clark. Under school plans, staff were notified at a meeting in the morning. Students were told while meeting in their advisory groups, and were offered the opportunity to meet with counselors if they wanted to, Clark said.

“It kind of has been a two-part incident (with the initial disappearance and then Tuesday night’s discovery) and kids just handle grieving differently,” Clark said. “Many were holding on for hope he would turn up or there was some other explanation. I think for kids holding on for hope’s sake, they struggled more today than they did the first day.

“At least now it is final, but it certainly is a terrible ending.”

That sentiment was echoed again and again on a family-created Facebook page, “Help find Richard ‘Shaw’ Jackson,” which included more than 30 comments on Wednesday. Tuesday night, the family member who created the page noted that Jackson had been found, “but not the way we intended.”

“There will not be a day that passes by that he will not be thought of,” the family member wrote. “But we do thank God for giving us our time with Shaw.”

The fishermen who found Jackson’s body were familiar with the previous search efforts, so when they discovered the body they contacted authorities, according to Maj. Gregory Sanborn of the Maine Warden Service. The Maine Warden Service was assisted by the Kennebec County Sheriff’s Office in removing the body from the lake.

“We are appreciative that the efforts of these anglers resulted in Shaw being returned to his family,” Sanborn said.

Turcotte said Wednesday that Jackson’s snowmobile had not been recovered from the lake and she didn’t know whether there were further plans to search for it. Jackson’s body “was brought to the funeral home and the medical examiner will determine the cause of death and at that point our part (in the investigation) is finished,” Turcotte said.

“The most important thing was to help the family,” she said.

Jackson had last been seen leaving Pinkham’s Corner Fuel off Route 32, where he worked as part of a co-op program through the Capital Area Technical Center in Augusta. He was believed to be heading home on his black Yamaha snowmobile, which had just been serviced, according to the warden service.

Wardens, police and volunteers spent the first four days of the search combing area snowmobile trails throughout China, Vassalboro and Winslow, but there were no signs of Jackson. The last two days of the search focused around a small island in the west basin of China Lake, called Bradley Island, where tracks were discovered leading to open water.

A hovercraft, several airboats, airplanes, a helicopter, snowmobiles, and sonar equipment were used during the search, which was suspended the night of Jan. 7.

Dave Pinkham, owner of Pinkham’s Corner Fuel, said in an earlier interview that he was Jackson’s boss and got to know the 18-year-old well enough that “he was like my own kid.”

A month after Jackson was still missing, Pinkham said that Jackson continued be mentioned each day since the search ended.

“Three, four times a day I meet somebody who will ask me about it. There’s a lot of heartfelt sorrow,” Pinkham said at the time.

Pinkham said he would remember Jackson for his intelligence and work ethic.

“He had a very good head on his shoulders,” Pinkham said. “He was very ambitious; a good, hard worker.”

For his part, Clark said he will remember Jackson as a “nice young man who had a nice circle of friends.”

“He certainly was a good addition to Erskine Academy and will certainly be missed,” he said.

Scott Monroe — 861-9253

smonroe@centralmaine.com

Mr. Boisseneau was found at 2:00PM on April 12th. A post mortem has been scheduled for April 13th in Sault Ste Marie.

Previous Report
Man Went Through Ice While Snowmobiling On Manitowik Lake

(Wawa, ON.) – Members of the Superior East O.P.P – Wawa Detachment are investigating an incident involving a Hawk Junction man who went through the ice at Manitowik Lake while snowmobiling on December 10th 2009. Daniel Boisseneau, 46, went into the water sometime late Thursday triggering a search by the O.P.P and the Michipicoten Fire & Emergency Services that failed to find his body. Stormy weather throughout Ontario has hampered further search efforts. The O.P.P. Underwater Search & Recovery Unit is arriving in Wawa on Saturday and will be commencing an intense search.

Olin Peach, 76, died at the scene of the mishap, Sheriff Fred Steen said.

Peach was riding the snowmobile Friday afternoon near his home and was expected for a visit at a friend’s house, Steen said.

When Peach did not arrive, the friends contacted Peach’s neighbors, the Baileys, to see if they could locate him. The Baileys heard what they thought was a chainsaw and followed the noise to where Peach was stuck under his snowmobile, which was still running, Steen said.

The Baileys determined Peach was dead at the scene and contacted Wallowa County Dispatch.

In the winter Peach used a snowmobile to access his cabin from Ski Run Road, which is set back from the road, Steen said. The Ski Run Road property was a vacation cabin for Peach, who was a retired history teacher. He taught at Upper Columbia Academy in Spangle, Wash. The academy is a Seventh-day Adventist boarding high school.

An Olin Peach Memorial Scholarship has been created at the academy. For information on how to donate, visit the academy’s website at ucaa.org.

The slide had carried Gardner’s body about 1,000 feet down the mountain. Search and rescue members do not know if the injuries to his body or a lack of oxygen is what killed Gardner. “They got his head uncovered right away, took them some time to get the rest of him out, but he was already had stopped breathing by the time they got his head uncovered,” Deputy Tyler Grose said.

Gardner’s body was removed from Francis Peak by late afternoon.

FOX 13′s Katy Carlyle reports.

Provincial police officers recovered the body of Lucien Dubeault, 48, on Sunday from Upper Jobrin Lake.

Police say the Cochrane, Ont., man was among a party of three who had been fishing on the lake 40 km north of Longlac, Ont.

The driver of the snowmobile was also pulled from the water and was eventually airlifted to hospital in Thunder Bay. His condition isn’t known.

Oakley resident Kevin Robert Rudnicki died in a single-vehicle crash at about 12:40 a.m. on Thursday. He was 43 years old.

The cause of the crash which occurred near Utica Reservoir in Alpine County is under investigation, the sheriff’s department says.

Authorities say Rudnicki was wearing the proper safety gear but was ejected from the snowmobile.

“It’s certainly a small miracle that we didn’t end up with a complete, massive group buried under the snow,” said Cpl. Dan Moskaluk of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Most of the estimated 200 spectators and participants were accounted for, he said.

An avalanche 150 yards wide and as much as 1.6 miles long thundered down a steep snow bowl at the Canadian Rocky Mountain resort of Revelstoke, where competitors were attempting to scale the treacherous slope on high-powered snow machines during an unsanctioned rally Saturday afternoon.

“From the information that we have, it was triggered by the snowmobilers,” said Greg Johnson, forecaster at the Canadian Avalanche Center in Revelstoke. “It swept over lots and lots of snowmobiles, trees. It is a very large avalanche, and there is debris everywhere.”

Canadian officials in recent years have been confronted with an increasing number of avalanche deaths, often among snowmobilers who authorities say are using ever-more-powerful machines to ascend steep slopes, often in unstable snow conditions.

There have been four avalanche fatalities this season. Last year 26 died, prompting the center to warn, in a report called “The Year of Sledding Dangerously,” that snowmobilers had been largely ignoring warnings to avoid steep, unstable slopes in the mountainous area.

The report said officials had had little success in getting snowmobilers to heed their warnings so they had begun directing them to wives and mothers. Accident investigations had demonstrated “some stunningly aggressive terrain choices,” it said. “It’s hard to watch as the same avalanche accident scenario unfolds again and again.”

Unusual weather conditions this month were “unprecedented,” prompting the issuance of special avalanche warnings each weekend for several weeks. “We’ve never done that before,” Johnson said.

A relatively dry, low-snowfall winter allowed a number of weaknesses to form in the upper portion of the snowpack, he said. That was followed by a strong storm Thursday and Friday. “The snow that fell overloaded those weaknesses in the snowpack and created a generally unstable situation,” he said.

Sioux Lookout detachment OPP officers say they responded to a 911 call just before 8 p.m. Saturday of a snow machine going through the ice near Frog Rapids bridge on Highway 72.
The deceased teen has been identified as Cody Gale, 17, of Sioux Lookout.

Police say the boy was with two friends who tried to pull him from the waters. Officers could not retrieve the youth from the lake until the following day with the assistance of the local Emergency Response Team and Marine Unit.

An investigation into the incident revealed that two of the male riders were water skipping, a stunt in which riders attempt to glide over open water on their snow machines, across Pelican Lake.