Alaska State Troopers report a Pitkas Point man died over the weekend in a snowmachine accident.
Darrell Hunt was travelling along the Adreafsky River on a 2013 Ski Doo snowmachine when he was fatally injured.
“They came to a right hand curve on the river and instead of going on the trail and turning on the curve, he went straight off the trail. He went for about 200 yards and then he hit about a four-foot-tall cut bank,” Trooper Spokesperson Beth Ipsen said.
Hunt was leading two others on a single snowmachine on a caribou-hunting trip. The accident happened about 52 miles up the north fork of the Andreafsky.
“When the two others on the other snowmachine came upon him he wasn’t talking, wasn’t breathing. So they performed CPR on him for about 15 to 20 minutes. When that wasn’t successful, they wrapped him in a tarp and put him on a sled that (Hunt) had been towing and then rode back to Saint Mary’s.”
Saint Mary’s is approximately five miles Northeast of Pitka’s Point. Hunt was pronounced dead upon arrival.
He was reportedly traveling upwards of 45 miles-per-hour at the time of the crash.
Ipsen said Hunt’s snowmachine was not badly damaged.
“There was a bent bar in the back. And just some general scrapes on the snowmachine. The brakes worked the steering was fine. The lack of damage is just puzzling, too, because he hit the bank and that was it.”
Troopers are still unclear as to why Hunt drove straight into the cut-bank.
The two men with Hunt did say that they had previously stopped and consumed alcohol.
Troopers will not know if hunt was intoxicated at the time of his death until a toxicology report is filed.
His body was sent to the state medical examiner’s office in Anchorage for an autopsy.
Mark Arehart is a reporter with KYUK in Bethel.
