Public Safety

January 26. 2013 10:28PM

Three snowmobile crashes in Pittsburg at same time

A Vermont woman was airlifted from a snowmobile crash in Pittsburg in Maine. (Courtesy)

PITTSBURG - Three nearly simultaneous snowmobile crashes sent two people to the hospital Saturday, authorities said.

The first happened around 1:15 p.m. when Kristen R. Cortigiano, 20, of Farmington, Conn., failed to negotiate a curve and downhill grade on Trail 20, causing her machine to go over an embankment, striking a large stump.

She received what appeared to be serious, but non-life threatening injuries as a result of the crash and was airlifted to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, according to state Fish and Game.

A second machine in the group also went off the trail in the same location, sustaining minor damage. That operator, Michael M. Fallat, 21, of Auburn, N.Y., was not injured but was charged with operating a snowmobile on a suspended license.

"Failure to adjust speed to changing trail conditions appears to have been the primary factor in both incidents," authorities said in a news release.

Meanwhile, the third snowmobile crash was reported on Trail 142.

Theresa Voci, 52, of Randolph, Vt., suffered injuries to her leg and thigh after her snowmobile left a bend in the trail, went down an embankment and struck several logs beneath the snow.

She was airlifted to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston, Maine.

Voci and her husband told Fish and Game conservation officers that another group of snowmobiles traveling in the middle of the trail at a high rate of speed in the opposite direction forced her off the trail to avoid colliding with them, according to authorities.