Just as a Ontario snowmobile safety week begins, Ontario Provincial Police yesterday identified a 15-year-old Ingersoll girl killed in a weekend crash. Ashley DeLong was riding on the snowmobile in a flat field off of Zorra Road 62 west of the 23rd Line Friday night when the vehicle hit a plowed section. Both DeLong and the 17-year-old male driver were thrown from the snowmobile. A 15-year-old female passenger and 17-year-old male passenger riding a second snowmobile also flew off the vehicle when it hit the rough patch.

"It was two 15-year-olds and two 17-year-olds out having some fun," said Oxford OPP Const. Dennis Harwood. "Tragedy can strike swiftly."

DeLong was taken to Alexandra Hospital and then transferred to the Children's Hospital of Western Ontario, where she died from head injuries. The boy riding with DeLong was taken to Alexandra Hospital and has since been released with minor injuries. The driver and passenger of the second snowmobile are still at Alexandra Hospital.

Harwood said the snowmobiles were travelling too fast.

"They were driving past their headlights. They couldn't see far enough ahead. If they would have seen the change in the flat ground, they would have stopped."

"Every time I hear something like that it feels to me like someone of my own I have lost," said Case Van Harn, a district vice-president with the Ontario Federation of Snowmobile Clubs.

Van Harn is a long-time instructor of snowmobile safety courses, especially for young adults who do not have driver's licences. He has trained riders for 14 years. They require a snowmobile operator's permit. Van Harn said his organization encourages riders to use its marked trails, which are groomed "to make them as safe as possible."