Man escapes sinking truck on Lake Minnetonka, but not dog

[Fish Felon]

The officers reported the water temperature was 35 degrees. The reading was confirmed by local resident and know-it-all Alan Nikolai.

The dog was a golden retriever and everyone on the scene concluded its drowning to be a blessing in disguise, including the man who fell through.


In other news, the Timberwolves were victorious over the Washington Wizards in Kevin Garnett's homecoming........


Man escapes sinking truck on Lake Minnetonka, but dog doesn't

By MARY LYNN SMITH , STAR TRIBUNE
February 25, 2015 - 11:48 PM


A man escaped Wednesday night from his sinking truck after it crashed through the ice on Lake Minnetonka.

His dog couldn’t be rescued and died, said Lt. Kent Vnuk with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Water Patrol unit.

The man was heading to his fish house on Lafayette Bay when his truck went through the ice near the Arcola Bridge, Vnuk said. It was not a posted thin-ice area, he said.

Vnuk said the man was able to climb out of the truck and pull himself onto a shelf of thin ice, where he yelled for help. “He used most of his energy to get on the ice and couldn’t move,” Vnuk said.

A resident on Lafayette Road heard the screams and called 911, he said.

Because of the thin ice, four deputies positioned themselves flat on the ice, forming a human chain to pull the man to safety.

The man was taken to shore on an ATV and was then taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital, Vnuk said. He was conscious and alert.

Mary Lynn Smith

[h2ofwlr]

You are a 1st class Ass of the 3rd order of the Knights of Columbus. Do they know that you are such a complete looser and psycho and stalker?


BTW, it could not be the Arcola bridge as Lafayette bay is not attached to it, if it was Lafayette bay it was the Narrows bridge. Conversely if it was by the Arcola bridge, then I was not the Lafayette bay.

[Swartzy]

Grab your popcorn! It's about to get good again.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Fish Felon]

You are a 1st class Ass of the 3rd order of the Knights of Columbus.

Yes, yes I am.

Good to have you back h2ofwlr!!!

[Stute Slap]

So was Al really there or not?

If so how did FF know he was there?

Just out curiosity, was it FF who took the picture of Al's truck at Mills?

[Fish Felon]

Just out curiosity, was it FF who took the picture of Al's truck at Mills?

Nope, that was that Luke L guy. He also posted a picture of Al's back while sitting right behind him at the MWA symposium. That one was really creepy.

[h2ofwlr]

‘He was my everything,’ says man who lost dog after truck broke through ice

http://bringmethenews.com/2015/02/27/he ... rough-ice/

[Stute Slap]

It says the guy was paralyzed with no use of his legs. Lucky he got himself out with only his arms.

[9manfan]

It says the guy was paralyzed with no use of his legs. Lucky he got himself out with only his arms.

Heard that on the radio this morning, the guy is very lucky to get out of this deal alive.......

[Fish Felon]

WEST METRO

Driver who broke through Lake Minnetonka tells of 40 minutes of terror


By MARY LYNN SMITH AND ANNE MILLERBERND , STAR TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS
February 27, 2015 - 5:22 PM


As the frigid water and ice chunks poured into the open window, the pickup truck plummeted to the bottom of Lake Minnetonka and Ryan Neslund felt the surge of panic and fear.

“I was doomed,” said the 35-year-old paraplegic.

He was headed to his fish house on Lafayette Bay about 8 p.m. Wednesday. As he drove out on the lake, as he has nearly every day this season with his yellow Labrador retriever in the back seat, he followed the tire tracks in the snow. Then the tracks disappeared.


“There was a bare spot with no snow on it, and I said, ‘What the heck?’ But by the time it all registered in my brain, my whole truck nose-dived into the lake. Crash. Boom. Smack,” Neslund said Thursday night, sitting in his wheelchair at his home across the street from the lake.

“It took a millisecond to realize that this is actually happening and it’s not a bad dream,” he said.

As the front of the truck sank, he opened the truck’s electric window before it shorted out. “Otherwise, I would be trapped there forever.” Water and ice rushed into the cab. “It was like Niagara Falls,” he recalled. And within seconds, the truck was on the bottom of the lake and the cab was filled with water.

“I figured I was going to die,” Neslund said. But with a will to live and an inch of space — and air — left in the cab, Neslund breathed in all he could take in and pulled himself through the open window. He swam up about 10 feet, hitting the surface of the water, pushing away ice chunks as he swam to a shelf of ice.

Paralyzed from the chest down, his legs were dead weight. And there was nothing to grab to get atop the ice. So he dug his fingernails in. He scratched, dug deeper and pulled with every last bit of strength. Just as he almost got himself up, he slipped back into the water.

He wasn’t about to give up just yet. He reached up, dug in and pulled himself onto the ice.

With the wind blowing at 12 miles per hour, the 12-degree temperature felt more like 9-below. His sweatshirt stiffened and then froze almost solid.

He looked toward the hole in the ice, hoping his 8-year-old dog, Balou, would emerge. “He was the most precious thing that I had,” he said. “He’s all I had all day, every day.”

It was dark and silent, and he was at least a quarter-mile from shore.

“I couldn’t crawl to shore without freezing to death,” he said. He could only hope that someone would drive by.

So he yelled: “Help! Help! Help!”

“I figured I would scream until I couldn’t scream anymore,” he said. And then it would be over.

Instead, a teenager was standing out on his deck smoking and talking on his cellphone when he heard Neslund’s cries. He called 911.

Neslund figures he sat on the ice for about 40 minutes before he saw flashlights moving along the shoreline and sirens wailing.

“It took forever,” he said. “Or it seemed like it.”

An ATV sped by in the distance and Neslund yelled out, but he knew the rescuers on wheels couldn’t hear or see him. He couldn’t move; his frozen clothes encased him.

But he continued screaming with every breath he could muster, giving rescuers on shore a way to guide the deputies from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office Water Patrol unit to him.

When they arrived, deputies stopped before reaching him, unsure of the thickness of the ice. Instead, the four deputies formed a human chain, he said. With the last deputy lying flat on his belly, he grabbed Neslund and they pulled him to safety.

“I still didn’t know if I was going to live,” said Neslund, who was taken to North Memorial Medical Center and treated for frostbite and hypothermia. “I never felt that cold before. My teeth were chattering for so long and so hard, I felt like they were going to shatter.”

A day later, Neslund, who was paralyzed in a 2011 motocross accident, is exhausted and hurting.

He’s glad to be alive, he said. “But I’m sad about my dog. If I could have saved him, I would have.”

Anne Millerbernd is a University of Minnesota student on assignment for the Star Tribune.

anne.millerbernd@startribune.com • 651-308-7126