CONTACT:
Conservation Officer Sgt. Glen Lucas
603-788-4850
603-271-3361
March 13, 2023
Errol, NH – On Saturday, March 11, 2023, at approximately 3:00 p.m., a call was made reporting that a man had sustained serious injuries after being involved in a snowmobile crash. The call and information had a GPS coordinate at the junction of Primary Trail 110 and Corridor 18 in the town of Errol. Two Conservation Officers were relatively close to this location and responded via snowmobile.
COs arrived at the staging area just as Errol Fire and Ambulance were getting their rescue gear and crews together. A CO was able to relay one of the EMTs to the scene to assist the patient quickly. Errol Fire and Ambulance crews were close behind with a rescue UTV and snowmobile with rescue sled.
After speaking with multiple witnesses on scene, it was discovered that 55-year-old Paul Towers of Hancock, NH, was the operator of a snowmobile and the only injured person on scene. COs were told that two others in Towers’s riding party stopped at a trail junction to talk about which way to go. Towers came into the intersection, slowed down, but then quickly accelerated, crashing into the back of the second snowmobile in line and then getting thrown into the back of the first snowmobile in line. The operators of the second and first snowmobiles in line were not injured.
Towers was conscious and breathing after the crash and was able to relay that he made the mistake of grabbing the throttle instead of the brake. The two riding partners quickly described that Towers’s snowmobile had an accessory lefthand throttle as well as a factory righthand throttle. COs reviewed the snowmobile that Towers was operating and found the lefthand throttle accessory.
Towers was loaded into the rescue sled and then into the Errol Ambulance. He was transported to Androscoggin Valley Hospital for serious but non-life threatening injuries.
Towers stated that he had many years of riding experience but recently got back into snowmobiling after getting out of it for a while. He said that he bought the snowmobile used, with the left hand throttle accessory already on it. He also said that he wished that he took it off before this had happened but had ridden many times this year without an issue.
Inexperience of equipment is the primary factor in the crash.