PORTLAND – Maine’s supreme court on Monday ruled against a New Hampshire man who crashed his snowmobile and sued the state for negligence, alleging rescuers arrived late to the scene.

Thomas Thompson of Windham, N.H., alleged that severe injuries he suffered in a March 1999 snowmobile accident were made worse by a delay in his rescue.

Thompson was riding on a Somerset County trail patrolled by the state Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife when he collided with another snowmobiler.

He said he sustained a broken nose, broken arm, broken teeth, crippled shoulder, lost spleen and kidney, and injuries to his head, back and neck.

Last March, Thompson filed suit, arguing the state’s negligence delayed the pursuit by rescue workers, which in turn exacerbated his injuries.

Thompson’s lawsuit alleged that a rescue helicopter did not carry enough fuel to conduct a sufficient search and that the helicopter’s radios were incompatible with equipment used by rescuers on the ground.

But a Kennebec County Superior Court judge dismissed Thompson’s lawsuit, and the Supreme Judicial Court upheld that ruling Friday.

The Maine Tort Claims Act protects state agencies from tort claims such as Thompson’s, the justices ruled.