Ice Fishing

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Sheriff: 1 dead, 100-plus rescued from Lake Erie

OAK HARBOR, Ohio – One person who was among those stuck Saturday on a miles-wide slab of ice that floated away from the Ohio shoreline of Lake Erie has died, while more than 100 others were rescued, authorities said.

The victim fell into the water while searching with others for a link to the shoreline, Ottawa County sheriff Bob Bratton said. Others tried CPR before the person was flown to a hospital and pronounced dead, Bratton said.

Several ships and helicopters from Toledo and Marblehead, and from Detroit, were sent to rescue the people from the 8-mile-wide ice floe. He said 100 to 125 were rescued by late afternoon.

Authorities said fishermen apparently used wooden pallets to create a bridge over a crack in the ice so they could go farther out on the lake Saturday morning. But the planks fell into the water when the ice shifted, stranding the fishermen about 1,000 yards off shore.

Ice on western sections of Lake Erie is up to 2 feet thick, National Weather Service meteorologist Bill Randel said. He said it started to crack as temperatures rose above freezing this weekend and wind gusting to 35 mph pushed on the ice.

"The ice just separated and we didn't even know," Rich Strickland of Bowling Green, who was among those rescued, told the Port Clinton News Herald.

Mike Sanger of Milwaukee was in the area for walleye fishing.

"We were having a good time and when it got to be time to come home, it wasn't so good," he told the newspaper after being rescued.

Ice fisherman who regularly visit the lake have said this winter's thick ice has lured more people to the lake this year.

"There was a heck of a city out there for the last week and a half, two weeks," said 71-year-old Oak Harbor resident Peter Harrison, who has lived on the shore for 40 years.

Ohio Division of Wildlife spokeswoman Jamey Graham said the state annually warns fishermen that there's no such thing as "safe ice."

Even in very cold weather, the ice on western Lake Erie is often unsafe because currents can easily cause the ice to shift. Firefighters in communities along the lake are trained for rescues from the ice and are often on guard when temperatures rise.

http://www.foxtoledo.com/dpp/news/More_ ... e_stranded