Inter-agency cooperation leads to happy outcome as man transported alive to Eau Claire

A man is alive after falling through the ice at Otter Lake, thanks to the teamwork and combined efforts of area fire agencies.

Taking place the afternoon of Wednesday, Dec. 21, the man was riding an ATV on the south end of Otter Lake off 366th Street, when the ATV he was on went through the ice. Able to get himself out and call in the incident, Stanley Fire then sprang into action, together with Boyd-Edson-Delmar and the Chippewa Fire District, including the dive and rescue team. A staging area was set up just off of 165th Avenue to the north while the rescue was underway.

“The guy fell through the ice on a four wheeler,” Stanley Fire Chief Korey Hagenson related of the incident. “He was under for about 10 minutes.”

Hagenson said the man was cold and couldn’t move when found near a 10 by 10 plot of trees on the lake, and that hypothermia was starting to set in. Two Stanley firefighters suffered overexertion from pulling the man off the ice and were transported to Aspirus to be checked out, while the man himself was taken to Mayo Eau Claire. One thing to note?

“He had a good phone,” Hagenson said of the man calling in from Otter Lake after being in the water for 10 minutes.