Fort Wayne boy, 12, dies after snowmobile crash

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Updated: January 23, 2012 10:53PM

FORT WAYNE (AP) — Indiana conservation officers say a 12-year-old Fort Wayne boy has died after driving a snowmobile into a tree in the yard of his home.

Officers say the Connor Kitchen suffered severe head injuries in the crash Saturday afternoon. He died a few hours later at Parkview Hospital.

Officers say the boy’s father, 48-year-old Kyle Kitchen, was riding on the snowmobile helping his son operate the sled when the boy unexpectedly accelerated, throwing his father from the vehicle. The snowmobile traveling through some brush and into a wooded area where it ran head-on into a tree.

Neither the boy nor his father was wearing a helmet.