Fire department saves woman's life

A woman who plunged through the ice and spent a half hour struggling in frigid Foy's Lake on Christmas has the Kalispell Fire Department to thank for surviving.

"It was a miracle. I was questioning [whether] that was going to be my demise - that Gator and I were going to die on Christmas Day," Kathy Warmoth said.

Gator is the 12-year-old chocolate Labrador and pit bull cross that Warmoth was trying to rescue when she fell into icy peril herself.

"He's my baby. He looks like a Guernsey cow," she said. They've been together since he was 5 months old and Warmoth became his third owner.

She started Christmas morning excited at new snow, reading her newspaper over a leisurely breakfast, and then going outside to shovel.

She remembers clearing the snow off her ice house, with Gator and her other dog, Shaggy, outside with her.

"Seconds just turn into a major event … All of a sudden, they were out further than they should be" on the lake, she said.

Gator fell though.

"I didn't even think. I dropped the shovel. I ran right out after him."

Warmoth, 42, fell through the ice, too, into 33-degree water.

"I got out of the water on my own. It cracked again right away" and she went back in.

Treading water, Warmoth was weighted down with heavy Sorel boots and a Patagonia coat. She also was waging a struggle with the dog she was trying to save.

"Gator pushed me under three times, trying to hold onto me," she said. "I knew I had to get him away from me. I kicked him away … got on my back and started floating."

Warmoth prayed.

"Please, God, help us. We're drowning," she remembers. "I was getting weak. It was freezing … I had no peace with it, dying that way."

Neighbors heard her shouts.

Hans Mizee called 911 first. Kalispell and Smith Valley fire departments and ALERT helicopter were dispatched.

"My gaze had completely glazed over. I really felt like I had about five minutes left," Warmoth said.

And then she saw salvation in the form of Kalispell paramedics, dressed in special red ice suits with attached hoods and boots.

"There were Spider-men that looked like Santa," Warmoth said. "I just knew I was going to make it."

Warmoth was about 150 feet out from the shore, Lt. Craig Fischer said. Gator was nearby in the water.

As Fischer moved toward Warmoth, it was clear that the flimsy ice had betrayed her and also put him in danger.

"You could hear it cracking," Fischer said.

Within minutes of the department's arrival, he was poised on the edge of the ice. He was secured by a rope, attached to firefighter Cory Horsens, and weighted by other firefighters on the dock.

Fischer told Warmoth, "I'm going to come in. Don't grab onto me."

He lowered himself into the water to save her.

But first he had to boost Gator out of the water so the panicked dog wouldn't impede Warmoth's rescue.

"Pets in the water will often try to climb on the victim or on the firefighters and become a significant hazard," Fire Chief Randy Brodehl said.

Fischer then looped a 3- to 4-foot rope around Warmoth, clipping it to a harness he wore. Then he boosted her up onto the ice.

"The first time, it broke through. The second time, we got up there … Then it was a matter of her lying on her belly and [the crew] pulling her and I in," Fischer said.

Rescuers put her in a blanket and carried her halfway up a hill to a neighbor's house and then lifted her on a backboard the rest of the way.

Other neighbors took her dogs into their home while Warmoth went to the hospital. It was 27 minutes from the time firefighters were dispatched until they had her safely at Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

Warmoth estimates she was in the water for half an hour. Her core body temperature was only 87 degrees, but that was enough.

"When I talked to her, she was very appreciative" of the rescue, firefighter Adam Smart said.

Brodehl praised his firefighters as well.

"The department's ice rescue team is highly skilled and very prepared for this type of dramatic event," he said. "The hazard to team members during an ice rescue is high, and requires continuous training and specialized equipment."

Warmoth's firsthand experience shows why ice rescues are so dangerous, although she was remarkably lucky. She was bruised and scraped from the ice and from Gator. Her heart kept lapsing into defibrillation. But Warmoth was otherwise unharmed and anxious to get home to her dogs, who were unhurt in the ordeal. She went home and "slept for a week" and only returned to work Monday.

A yoga and Pilates instructor, Warmoth credits her fitness level for keeping her heart strong enough to get her through.

She has no feeling in her fingers yet and little in her toes. But she has a lot of feeling for her rescuers.

"Those guys are my saviors. They're just angels," she said. "I can't say enough about their professionalism and their quick response."

Thanks to them, "I basically have the ability to be born again on Christmas Day. I've been given a new life."

She doesn't know that she would do anything differently if she had time to consider the danger she was putting herself in, she said.

"I didn't want to see my dog dying out there on Christmas," she said.

She still savors living on the lake.

That's where "I've skied, I've snowshoed, I've skated, I've ice fished … Now I've fallen through. That was my least favorite activity," she joked.

The ordeal has at least temporarily suspended her interest in ice fishing. And so she wants to offer the use of her ice house this winter to one of her rescuers who she heard is an avid ice fisherman.

There is no real way to adequately thank them, she said.

"They'll be with me always," she said.

Days later, the firefighters joked about how they must have looked to Warmoth, moving across the lake in "big, red suits."

Their gear was donated a few years ago by the Flathead Electric Cooperative's Round-Up for Safety program. Firefighters underwent special training for an ice rescue just like Warmoth's.

"Those suits are pretty warm," Fischer said of the watertight gear.

He said he was happy with the way the gear and the team worked. Mostly, he was happy that it came out the way it did.

"It was cool. It made it worthwhile coming to work on Christmas Day," Fischer said.

Reporter Chery Sabol may be reached at 758-4441 or by e-mail at csabol@dailyinterlake.com