While on patrol on the Steese Highway on New Years Day, a Fairbanks-based Alaska Wildlife Trooper got weathered in at Eagle Summit, the highest point of the highway.

While at that location, the trooper was contacted by two men on a snow-machine, one of them with a serious leg injury. The trooper performed initial basic first aid on the injured passenger then called for a rescue. During the contact, the trooper would identify the driver of the snow machine as 21-year-old Shawn Kirkvold of North Pole.

The trooper was informed as he conducted an investigation of the injury incident, that Kirkvold and the injured man were eastbound at mile 83 in a sedan when it became stuck in a snowdrift. The two men reported that they abandoned their vehicle at that time and found two snow-machines on a trailer nearby.

Each man took a snow machine, it  was reported. The two traveled eastbound approximately 20 miles to mile 105 of the highway, and it was there that the two men collided on the machines and the one received injuries to his leg. The men reported that now on one machine, they traveled an additional three miles and contacted the weathered-in trooper at mile 108.

A Charlie Company 1st of 52nd Aviation regiment Blackhawk out of Fort Wainwright responded to the scene for the injured man. He was stabilized, treated and transported to the hospital.

Kirkvold, it was found, had two outstanding felony probation arrest warrants issued in the amount of $40,000. He was arrested on the warrants, transported for a medical examination, and ultimately remanded to the Fairbanks Correctional Facility.

Online court records show that Kirkvold has been convicted of vehicle theft twice in the last two years.

Troopers are continuing to investigate how the two snow machines were acquired. [xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]

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