Two people were killed and a third was injured in three separate ATV accidents on Kodiak Island over the Fourth of July holiday, Alaska State Troopers said.
The first incident was reported to troopers around 6 p.m. Wednesday and resulted in the death of 65-year-old Kodiak resident Lon White, troopers said in an online report. White had been operating an ATV that rolled and landed on top of him, troopers said. They noted no signs of impairment, and White had been wearing a helmet, troopers wrote.
Troopers spokesman Austin McDaniel said in an email that White had been operating a side-by-side on the Pillar Mountain Trail, which is just outside the city of Kodiak. He was not part of a group, McDaniel said.
Around 12:30 a.m. on July Fourth, troopers received a report of a child missing from the Pasagshak area south of Kodiak. Troopers were told a 13-year-old boy had been riding an ATV by himself and had not returned, they wrote in an online statement. While troopers were responding to the area, “family and friends began a hasty search of the area” and found the boy pinned under the ATV and “partially submerged” in Lake Rose Tead, troopers wrote.
The boy was declared dead at the scene. He was also wearing a helmet, troopers said.
The third accident was reported to troopers shortly after 2 a.m. on July Fourth, they wrote, when they were notified of an overturned side-by-side on Surfer’s Beach, which is south of the Pasagshak area on the island. Troopers who responded to the area found an injured man about 500 yards from the roadway, they said. He was not wearing a helmet, McDaniel said in an email.
The man was flown to a Kodiak-area hospital with injuries that troopers described as not life-threatening.
The bodies of White and the 13-year-old boy are being sent to the State Medical Examiner for autopsies, troopers said. None of the accidents appear to be related, McDaniel said.