Bob CollinsWith any luck, anyone thinking about driving on lake ice when authorities are warning them about thin spots will have a second thought after they hear Lyle Grohman’s story about what happened when his truck fell through the ice on Madison Lake east of Mankato, Minn., on Saturday.
- NewsCut archive: Vehicles through the ice
Officially, no one was hurt, the Associated Press said. Tell that to Grohman.
He still hears one young man’s cries for help.
“How could I save him when I couldn’t even save myself?” he tells the Faribault Daily News.
He, his nephew Jeremy, Jeremy’s friend, and his wife’s grandson had been in ice houses that evening but when it was time to head home, Grohman veered off a path on the ice someone had plowed.
He forgot to open a door before driving, but one of the windows was cracked open, allowing escape.
Out went his wife’s grandson, then Jeremy, then Lyle, who floundered in the water. Lyle was certain he was about to drown, but Jeremy jumped in and pulled him to safety. They four were out of the water, but they still had a ways to go.
“Everybody thinks it’s safe out there, but it ain’t,” he said. “I found that out the hard way.”
It may cost as much as $10,000 to fish the truck and an ice house out of the lake.
Three vehicles went through the ice on Madison Lake over the weekend, the Blue Earth County Sheriff’s Office reported.
