According to Seward Township/Burket Volunteer Fire Department Chief Kevin McSherry, an emergency call came in around 7:13 a.m. Saturday that reported an elderly man’s dog had fallen into Beaver Dam Lake and the man was stranded on his boat.
“There was ice on the east side of the lake out about 120 feet and the dog went out to the edge and fell in, so the guy pushed his flat-bottom boat out, and he was smart enough to take the boat instead of just going out,” McSherry said. “But he got in open water and at the edge of the ice it was thick from the waves hitting it and freezing and he couldn’t get back up onto the ice, but he did get the dog.”
McSherry said volunteer firemen Brennen Adams and Kegan O’Brien suited up in the department’s “gumby suits” and got the rescue sled out and headed for the lake.
“The guys went out and they broke through the ice before they got to the edge, but they were able to get to the man in the boat and … we pulled them all of them back across the ice to the shore,” McSherry said.
He said the firemen were talking to the stranded man on the boat to try to keep him calm.
“He wasn’t upset but he was concerned about how he was gonna get out because it was dark and we had our lighting set up. It was before sun up,” McSherry said of the rescue.
The man ended up being taken by Mentone EMS to Kosciusko Community Hospital for treatment for hypothermia, McSherry said, and the man’s dog was fine.
As for Adams and O’Brien, they had to warm up in the back of an ambulance to be able to remove their gumby suits because the zippers were frozen.
“It was like 20 degrees that morning,” McSherry said.
He said the department received the two gumby suits and the rescue sled as a gift from the K21 Health Foundation more than a decade ago.
“They’re made for ice water rescue, and once you get in it and get zipped up, you’re buoyant, you will float and you will stay dry because it’s tight around your face and the only thing sticking out is your face,” he said. “The suits and sled made it all possible.”
McSherry did not have the man’s and dog’s names.
