EUSTIS — An Auburn man was injured Tuesday afternoon after he was thrown from his snow bike as he was back country riding with friends on the side of Bag Pond Mountain in Chain of Ponds Township. A Eustis man was also injured in a separate snowmobile incident Tuesday.

In the Chain of Ponds accident, a group of five snowmobiles and snow bikes were riding off trail in a steep wooded area when Tyler Baker, 28, of Auburn was ejected off his bike, according to information Warden Daniel Christianson wrote to fellow wardens and Mark Latti, spokesman for the Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.

Baker struck and injured his lower left leg on a large tree. His four friends, who were able to aid Baker and get help, “were a huge help assisting him out of the woods,” Christianson wrote.

Maine Game Wardens, Eustis and Rangeley fire rescue departments, Maine Forest Service and NorthStar EMS ambulance responded to the accident, reported at about 1:30 p.m.

Baker was riding with his friends about a mile off trail on the steep mountainside.

Rescue personnel were able to get him off the mountain by sliding a stretcher, or basket, down the mountain and through the woods with a snowmobile out to a waiting rescue sled, according to Christianson. The rescue sled still had approximately two more miles out to Route 27 at Gold Brook Road in Chain of Ponds.

Emergency crews were staged at Gold Brook Road, Eustis Fire Chief Sprague Wise said.

A snow bike is basically a dirt bike with a track replacing the back wheel and a ski replacing the front wheel, Wise said.

Two members from Eustis Fire Rescue responded along with four members and equipment from Rangeley Fire Rescue.

It took nearly four hours to locate Baker, get him from the side of the mountain to the waiting rescue sled and to the ambulance on Route 27, according to a post on the Eustis Fire Department’s Facebook page.

In the second incident, at about 3 p.m. Retired Game Warden Blaine Holding received a message on his phone from a friend stating he needed assistance and was injured, Christianson wrote. The Eustis resident was out snowmobiling when he crashed his over a rock ledge.

Holding and two other local people, along with a Maine Game Warden, located Bob White off trail at the end of a wood yard in Eustis, approximately 5 miles from Route 27. Wardens and Eustis Fire Rescue with NorthStar EMS assisted in getting White out to the waiting ambulance and transported him to Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington.

White sustained broken bones in his right leg due to the crash, according to Christianson.

Eustis covers territory in Franklin and Somerset counties from the Wyman Township line to the Canadian border. The Chain of Ponds crash was the seventh snowmobile accident since about Dec. 1, 2019 that Eustis handled, Wise said.

In the same period, Rangeley Fire Rescue has responded to 19 accidents compared to last season’s 12 accidents, Rangeley Chief Michael Bacon said. The department is responsible for 21 towns and townships in Franklin and Oxford counties and covers more than 600 square miles, he said.

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