Northport man dies after snowmobile crash

NORTHPORT – A Hart Road man injured in a weekend snowmobile accident died early Monday.

Oakley Shedd, 64, was injured after the 1989 Yamaha snowmobile he was riding crashed into his pickup truck, which was parked at the end of a gated woods road.

The gate acted as a ramp and the machine crashed onto the hood of the truck.

The accident occurred at the end of Hart Road about 11:45 a.m. Sunday, investigators said.

Riding with Shedd on the machine was a 6-year-old boy, neighbor Marlon Hansen. Hansen suffered a broken nose and broken teeth in the wreck.

Neither was wearing a helmet.

Shedd told those who attended him at the scene that the snowmobile’s throttle had stuck.

Shedd was taken by Belfast Ambulance to Waldo County General Hospital and later was taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, where he was pronounced dead shortly after midnight Monday, according to Mark Latti, spokesman for the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

Latti said wardens had impounded Shedd’s snowmobile and will conduct an investigation to determine whether mechanical problems caused the accident.

“We don’t know for certain what caused it,” Latti said Monday.

Shedd’s death marks the first fatality of the 2003-04 snowmobile season. Snowmobile accidents took the lives of 16 people in Maine last year.