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40-foot
plunge kills rider
 By
RICHARD MAUER
Daily News Reporter
Fairbanks dentist Robert Gottschalk, 51, was killed
Sunday when he sailed his snowmachine over a 40-foot bluff near
Cantwell and suffered crushing chest injuries when he crashed, state
troopers reported Monday.
Gottschalk's death is the 24th snowmobiling fatality this winter,
two more than the decade's previous high.
Gottschalk was with seven other Fairbanks-area snowmachiners who
had set out for a late-morning ride into the Alaska Range, leaving
from a Parks Highway turnout at Broad Pass, Mile 203. After just
a few minutes, the lead rider, Mitch Stoutenberg, came to the drop-off.
"I stopped at the top. I looked to see that the guy behind me was
going to stop," Stoutenberg said.
The first six riders slowed for the bluff - a feature familiar
from their riding in the area Saturday - and crept down the slope
to its base.
Gottschalk was the seventh rider.
"Rob, for whatever reason, never slowed down," Stoutenberg said.
"He came barreling across."
The eighth rider told troopers he thought Gottschalk hit the lip
of the bluff at 50 mph. Stoutenberg, who remembered how fast Gottschalk
had been cruising the day before, thought it might have been 60
or 65.
The snowmachine soared 110 feet with Gottschalk still holding tight
to the controls. Stoutenberg, waiting at the bottom, turned just
as the machine hit the snow with such force that it bounced and
flew another 40 feet with Gottschalk and then crashed again.
Stoutenberg got to Gottschalk quickly, but he was already unconscious,
blood flowing from his mouth. One of the snowmachiners removed Gottschalk's
helmet. They couldn't detect breathing or a pulse.
"It was evident he wasn't going to make it," Stoutenberg said.
Summoning help on a cell phone, some of the group went the mile
and half back to the Parks Highway to wait while others stayed with
Gottschalk.
Cantwell trooper Rod Johnson and Sgt. Sonny Sabala were there within
five minutes of getting the call. Johnson borrowed a snowmachine
and followed the friends back to the scene. Medics from the Cantwell
rescue squad went along on their two-person snowmobile, towing a
heated sled. An Army rescue helicopter was being readied in Fairbanks.
The medics saw that Gottschalk's chest had been crushed against
the handlebars and controls, and his neck and head might have been
injured too. It wasn't long before they called off the helicopter.
Gottschalk's body was taken back on the sled. The snowmachine,
a 1996 Polaris that troopers say was unregistered, started up and
was driven back.
Stoutenberg, his friend for 15 years, said Gottschalk leaves a
wife, three children and an active dental practice.
While Gottschalk had snowmobiled around Fairbanks, he was an inexperienced
mountain rider, Stoutenberg said. The day before, he took his first
trip into the Alaska Range.
"He had so much fun on Saturday, and he was just bubbling over
to go again," Stoutenberg said. "I think he was excited about it,
and something distracted him, maybe he was looking behind him, maybe
looking at (Mount) McKinley."
Sgt. Sabala said there was no evidence of alcohol or drug use by
Gottschalk before or during the snowmobile trip, and no autopsy
was ordered. In 1995, Gottschalk's license was suspended when he
admitted treating patients while under the influence of drugs and
alcohol, but he successfully completed a rehabilitation program
and was fully reinstated on Jan. 31, 1999.
Gottschalk didn't drive recklessly, Stoutenberg said, but liked
the thrill of speed when he rode in open country. He might not have
realized the risks, he said.
That's not uncommon, Sabala said.
"On a snowmachine you have no protection," Sabala said. "You have
a helmet, but other than protecting your head, you have nothing.
The possibilities of injury are just amazing. They're very dangerous
motorized vehicles, and it takes a lot of skill to ride them."
While most of the northern states have snowmachine training programs
overseen by state agencies, Alaska has none.
* Reporter Richard Mauer can be reached at rmauer@adn.com
©2000
Anchorage Daily News
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