FOND DU LAC, WI (WTAQ) – A pick-up truck that broke through the ice along a crack on southern Lake Winnebago on Saturday afternoon has been pulled from the depths.
The truck was extracted by none other than Don Herman with Sunk? Dive & Ice Service. He’s been in the business for quite a while.
“I have a very good crew. When I first started 40 years ago it took us a day, day and half? Now we get it out in 3-5 hours,” Herman said. “We cut the ice and set up our equipment and boom over the hole, the diver goes down and hooks on. We’ve been doing it for 40-some years, so it actually looks pretty easy but it’s very difficult. Took a long time to learn it.”
You can watch part of the process here:
On Monday morning, they started the process around 9:30 a.m. and wrapped up just after noon.
The driver apparently tried to span a crack that was about eight feet wide.
“He just wasn’t paying attention and drove it right into the crack. The lake is actually pretty good, we’ve got 17-18 inches of ice out here. He just drove into a bad spot,” Herman told WTAQ News. “The crack runs 35 miles. You’ve got to try not to jump it, and some people try to do that. But that’s why the fishing clubs all have bridges.”
Herman and his crew don’t work exclusively on Lake Winnebago, either. They’ll drive a few hours to help anglers fish out their vehicles. They pulled a tractor out of Lake Lucerne already this season.
Herman says they typically charge between $4,000-$5,000 to remove a vehicle from the lake. This was the fourth vehicle they’ve pulled already this season.
“If you’re not familiar with Lake Winnebago, the best thing to do is go contact a local fishing club – they’re all around the lake, they all have bridges, they all have treelines [and roads] marked,” Herman said. “Now with social media, actually my business is a little bit slower than it used to be, because everybody tells everybody where the bad spot is, but that’s the way it is! I think the fatalities went down over the years though.”
As always, Herman reminds people heading out onto any frozen lake that the ice is never 100% safe.
