LAKE POYGAN, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – A truck stuck in the Lake Poygan ice Wednesday created a dangerous situation, not only for the driver, but those who have to retrieve the vehicle.
About a mile from the south shoreline, a six-man crew from SUNK? Dive and Ice Service setup their equipment on about a foot of ice. A half-mile to the east, a pickup truck was lodged in the frozen surface.
Don Herman tells FOX 11 he’s got questions…
“I don’t know how it got this far again. He’s on four inches of ice. I don’t even know how he drove this far.”.
Mike Kroll is a member of the team. He first checked the truck Wednesday afternoon, from the safety of an all-terrain vehicle.
“I think every time we get up to a job like this, we always wonder in our mind, what was the person thinking? Why would you keep traveling, if you don’t know where you’re at.”
The crew had to cut a pathway through the ice, wide enough to eventually accommodate pulling out the truck to a spot with thicker ice. Kroll has a system to get rid of the large chunks.
“When the keg is big enough for myself, I can sink them by myself when they’re eight inches or thinner. You get the ice going down just enough and as soon as the lip that you’re standing on goes underneath the main ice, you just start walking toward the other side. The momentum will push the ice keg under.”
Before the truck can be moved, Kroll says the crew attaches a hook or two to the frame. Kroll says when many vehicles get wet, there’s plenty of high-tech trouble.
“Just like right now, we called the manufacturer to try to figure out how to put this thing in neutral, because the shifter switch is an electronic dial. There’s no more sticks and levers to pull like the old vehicles.”
As daylight began to fade, the team had to stop short of pulling out the truck. They say they will be back in the coming days to finish the job.
Towing a vehicle out of the ice doesn’t come cheap.
The SUNK team says it can run anywhere from $800-$1,000 per hour.
