Man rescued after plunge into lake

An ice fisherman survived frigid

Beaver Lake for almost 20 minutes after falling through the ice

Tuesday afternoon before he was pulled to safety by members of the

Whitefish Fire Department.

The man, whose name was not released,

was flown by ALERT helicopter to Kalispell Regional Medical Center

soon after 2 p.m. He has since been released.

The man, in his 60s, had been out

fishing on the thin ice when he fell in around 1:30 p.m.

Hearing screams, a neighbor called

911. Whitefish fire crews were on the scene by 1:53 p.m.

Joe Rendahl, a Whitefish

firefighter/paramedic, went into the hole and grabbed the man. Both

were hauled out by Garth Dickerman, a Whitefish firefighter and

EMT, and Ben Parsons, a Whitefish firefighter and medic, using a

rope rescue system.

All three on-ice rescuers wore

specialized flotation suits that insulate them from the cold.

“Considering how far out he was, he

was fairly lucky,” Whitefish Fire Captain Justin Woods said.

Treacherous ice so thin it couldn’t

support the weight of the rescuers slowed efforts somewhat.

Rescuers first walked a little way out, then crawled, before

Rendahl had to break through the ice to reach the man stranded

almost 600 yards out, Woods estimated.

“It took a little while to haul him

across the ice,” Woods said.

Once the man was on shore at 2:05

p.m., he was stripped of his wet clothes and wrapped in a space

blanket before being flown to Kalispell Regional Medical Center,

where he was treated for hypothermia.

“We highly recommend people staying

off the ice,” Woods added. “It’s a bad time of year to be ice

fishing or cross-county skiing or walking the dogs out on the

lake.”

Woods said they retrieved as much of

the man’s fishing equipment as they could.

Whitefish Fire Department, the

Flathead County Sheriff’s Office and ALERT responded.