Man indicted in snowmachine-collision death

Aug. 12, 2005

PALMER - A Valley man whose truck hit a snowmachine head on and killed the vehicle's operator two years ago on the Parks Highway was charged with criminally negligent homicide after a Palmer grand jury indicted him last Wednesday.

Joseph S. O'Brien, 37, will be arraigned in Palmer Superior Court Aug. 23 for the crash that killed Calvin Toal, 32, on Jan. 6, 2003, near Big Lake.

District Attorney Roman Kalytiak on Monday said O'Brien was traveling north on the Parks Highway, scraping frost on the inside of his truck window because his defroster wasn't working properly and he couldn't see the road very well. Two snowmachines were traveling south next to the highway on O'Brien's side of the road and had to ride up next to the guardrail to get around a ditch.

"Mr. Toal made it up on the shoulder of the highway and Mr. O'Brien thought the headlights were an oncoming car in his lane, so he veered severely to the right and he hit the snowmachine," Kalytiak said.

Kalytiak said O'Brien had not been drinking or using drugs prior to the incident, but Toal had a blood-alcohol level slightly over the legal limit of 0.08.

"Witnesses told the grand jury they had no trouble seeing the snowmachines and that Mr. O'Brien had been swerving in his lane," Kalytiak said.