Almost doubling of snow mobi­le acci­dents

Emer­gen­cy ser­vices and hos­pi­tal have got a record-high num­ber of mis­si­ons and pati­ents from snow mobi­le acci­dents this year. Until late March, the hos­pi­tal had 38 pati­ents in tre­at­ment with inju­ries rela­ted to acci­dents from snow mobi­le dri­ving. In 2014, the equi­va­lent num­ber was 21. Inju­ries often include frac­tures.

The data base is not suf­fi­ci­ent to ana­ly­ze reasons, but this season’s insta­ble wea­ther may have con­tri­bu­ted with bad visi­bi­li­ty at times and icy sur­faces.

The pro­por­ti­ons of locals and tou­rists is also not known. Seve­ral serious acci­dents included local dri­vers, such as the young man who died in an ava­lan­che in Janu­ary and the exten­si­ve search and res­cue mis­si­on on the east coast. In late March, a young man from Lon­gye­ar­by­en fell into a 6 m deep snow who­le with his snow mobi­le and recei­ved hea­vy head inju­ries. He is still in hos­pi­tal in Trom­sø, not in a life-threa­tening con­di­ti­on any­mo­re but he his being kept in an arti­fi­ci­al coma.

The num­bers of par­ti­ci­pan­ts on orga­ni­zed tours have not rea­ched the levels of the record years of 2007 and 2008 again, but the num­bers of indi­vi­du­al snow mobi­le ren­tals have increased, indi­ca­ting a lar­ger num­ber of tou­rists indi­vi­du­al­ly in the field. Tho­se who are out on indi­vi­du­al trips with limi­t­ed expe­ri­en­ced and wit­hout local know­ledge have to remem­ber that they are tra­ve­ling with a strong vehic­le that can quick­ly reach high speed in ter­rain that has all the poten­ti­al traps and dan­ge­rous that the win­ter arc­tic may have. Uneven ter­rain, wind­ho­les in the snow etc. can be dif­fi­cult to see in bad wea­ther or poor light con­di­ti­ons, which may quick­ly result in dan­ge­rous acci­dents.

Source: Sval­bard­pos­ten (14, 2015)

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