Authorities: Woman killed in snowmobile crash was hauling microwave By Associated Press, 1/1/2003 21:21

WEBB, N.Y. (AP) A Virginia woman who died while snowmobiling lost control of the sled while carrying a microwave oven on the steering column, authorities said.

Sandra Thompson, 53, of Blacksburg, Va., died Sunday after she ran into a tree limb in this northern New York town, police said.

Thompson and her husband, Ronald, had just gotten the microwave and it may have shifted and hit the snowmobile's throttle, Herkimer County Coroner Dan Rivet Jr. said.

''She was not traveling at a high rate of speed and there was no alcohol involved,'' Rivet said. ''It was just a horrible, terrible tragedy.''

Sandra Thompson was pronounced dead at the scene and an autopsy was pending.

Ronald Thompson was riding a snowmobile ahead of his wife, authorities said. The couple were renting a seasonal cottage in the area.

-- Anonymous, January 02, 2003