Fort Smith woman thrown from snowmobile by misplaced snare

A Fort Smith woman is warning snowmobilers in the region to watch out for misplaced snares, after she was thrown from her machine and injured on New Year's Day.

Sheri Vogt and her family set out for a morning ride on Jan. 1 on a trail about 35 kilometres from Fort Smith, near the Salt River reserve. The group travelled across a prairie to a trail that Vogt said leads back to a main road.

"Going slow, we were just crawling on the trail," said Vogt. "Just family and friends. It was so beautiful."

While on their ride, Vogt said her husband pushed a branch out of the way on the trail. At that moment, a wire flew up and caught her right across the abdomen.

"It managed to pull me up and over the back rest," she said. "My friend said two somersaults, and I landed on my face."

Believes snare may have been set for a wolf

Vogt believes that the neck snare trap may have been set for a wolf. It appeared to be strung between two trees across the trail, and was not flagged or marked.

"It scared the crap out of me," she said. 

Vogt is now nursing a moon-shaped bruise across her abdomen nearly a foot long. However, she said that she's thankful the situation didn't turn out any worse, noting that her daughter was right behind her.

"If it hadn't caught me, and thank god it did, it could have caught my daughter on her neck," she said.

Vogt said she doesn't know who set the snare, but that there were cabins in the area. She's sent the snare to the territory's Department of Environment and Natural Resources and filed a complaint.