Boy dies in New York after being trapped in snow fort, with road crews potentially at fault

Joshua Demarast, 13, of Greenwich upstate New York died when tonnes of snow fell on him. Photo / AP

A 13-year-old boy building a snow fort in Upstate New York died after he was trapped in a snow bank, and authorities are trying to determine whether road crews unwittingly dumped hundreds of kilograms of snow on him.

Joshua Demarast was killed but his friend Tyler Day, 12, was found by diggers, alive and unharmed in Greenwich, New York, about 64km northeast of Albany.

The boys were playing in a private lot where Department of Public Works trucks dump snow collected this week, according to the Times Union, an Albany newspaper.

The surviving boy, who was responsive and talking, told his rescuers he heard the backup alarm of a truck, then everything went dark, the newspaper reported. The incident remains under investigation.

The boys were reported missing around 5pm. A search dog found their sled, and first-responders launched a frantic effort to uncover the pair.

"There was probably a dozen-and-a-half men with shovels and bare hand digging, and I think they moved - with no exaggeration - seven tonnes of hard packed snow in about 10 minutes' time," Greenwich-Cambridge Police Chief George Bell told Albany, New York, ABC-affiliate WTEN.

The unconscious boy was found first, but paramedics couldn't resuscitate him at the scene, according to the New York Daily News. He was taken to Saratoga Hospital, but it was too late. He was pronounced dead at 10pm.

The other boy was recovering at home.

Earlier this week, a snowstorm that swept into the northeast dumped a foot of snow in parts of the Great Lakes and upper Midwest and left half a foot across New York and northern New England, according to the Associated Press.

Greenwich got snow on Monday and Tuesday, according to The Weather Channel.

The boy's death was reminiscent of the death of 56-year-old David Perrotto on a snowy January weekend in eastern Pennsylvania.

Perrotto was trying to dig out his car - or possibly taking a break from the exertion or the cold - when a snowplow came by, burying the running car and blocking the exhaust pipe, police told Philadelphia NBA-affiliate WCAU.

Another person digging out a vehicle found the running car with an unresponsive Perrotto inside.