Minnesota Man Dies After ATV Falls Through Thin Ice
Cass Lake, MN (KROC-AM News) - The still thin ice conditions present throughout Minnesota have contributed to the death of an elderly man in an ATV mishap.
The Cass County Sheriff's Office says deputies responded to a report Friday morning of an all-terrain vehicle going through the ice on Pike Bay just outside of the city of Cass Lake. The report, which came in around 11:15 AM, also indicated that a person was in the water.
A news release says the responding deputies were told an 82-year-old Bemidji man was driving a Polaris side-by-side ATV when the vehicle broke through the ice. Some people fishing nearby witnessed the incident and managed to pull the man out of the frigid water.
The Sheriff's Office says they began performing life-saving efforts on the man until the deputies arrived and continued the life-saving efforts while the victim was transported to an ambulance on an airboat. The man was then transported to the hospital in Cass Lake where he was pronounced dead.
The Ramsey County Medical Examiner's Office has been asked to perform an autopsy to determine the exact cause of death. The name of the victim has not been released.
Cass County Sheriff Bryan Welk says the deadly incident highlights the extremely unsafe ice conditions. Following the tragic incident, the Sheriff stated, "even though we have experienced colder weather this week, ice conditions still remain very unstable and poor."
In recent weeks there have been several incidents in northern Minnesota where law enforcement and other emergency responders have had to rescue dozens of people from marginally ice-covered lakes. Most of those incidents involved sheets of ice breaking away and floating away from shore, stranding people who had ventured out to do some ice fishing.
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Gallery Credit: Carly Ross
