ST. AGATHA, Maine – Two vehicles broke through the ice at Long Lake in Aroostook County on Saturday. Both were removed from the water and back on shore within several hours, according to witnesses.
The incident began around 9 a.m. when a man drove a pickup truck onto the ice near Pelletier Island. The truck broke through the ice and began to sink. St. Agatha resident Roger Morneault, who later helped pull the truck out of the lake, said the driver was local resident Ricky Daigle.
Chris Perkins of Fort Fairfield, who witnessed the incident and took photos of the truck sinking through the ice, said he had drilled a hole near where the truck went in and the ice was 2 ½ inches thick.
“I was standing there screaming at him to stop when he headed out,” Perkins said Monday via Facebook message. “We watched him walk out with [an ice chisel] and he chipped a hole in about five hits. [We] figured he was going to walk out and fish. All of a sudden he came flying out with the truck and down he went.”
Perkins said the driver escaped through the driver’s side window, crawled up on the truck bed and jumped to safe ice. The man walked to shore. Within a short time, another pickup and a tractor arrived and attempted to haul the sunken pickup back to shore.
Morneault said that vehicles can take up to 10 minutes to fully submerge, and that Daigle was able to tie a chain to his truck hitch, making it much easier for Morneault to pull it out of the lake.
“He called another one of his buddies with a winch on a truck, and we tied the front of his truck to a tree and tied the winch to the other truck and pulled it to the shore,” he said, adding that they also had to use a chainsaw to cut out a channel for the truck to be pulled out.
The truck was submerged in around 10 feet of water roughly 90 feet from the shore.
Morneault said this is not the first time he has been asked to pull something out of the lake.
“I’ve pulled a lot of stuff out of the lake,” he said, “snowmobiles, cars, trucks, four-wheelers, and a couple of submerged canoes.”
Perkins said it was nearly dark when the incident ended.
“They spent all day with chainsaws, lots of chains, believe it or not another truck and a tractor on the ice behind it,” Perkins said. “[They] wound up putting the tractor through the ice as well but it was close to shore. In the end they got everything back to dry land.”
Morneault said Daigle called a game warden as soon as the truck sank into the lake. According to Morneault, the warden left after confirming that there were no injuries, alcohol was not a factor, and that the truck was being pulled out.
Daigle did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Mark Latti, communications director for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, said game wardens did not assist with pulling out the vehicle.
“There is a requirement that a person who goes through the ice needs to remove their vehicle as soon as possible,” Latti said, “which they did.”
Latti said there were no injuries.
And with nobody hurt, Morneault said he enjoyed helping his friend extract his truck.
“We had a good time on Saturday,” he said. “We brought friends together and it was friggin’ awesome.”
Aroostook County Administrator Ryan Pelletier, who lives in the area, said he was not aware of any emergency organizations responding to the incident. A dispatcher for Maine State Police in Houlton also said they were not aware of any response to the incident.
Pelletier also serves as the vice chair of the Long Lake Ice Fishing Derby event. He said this incident was caused by ice conditions not being sufficient to hold a full-size pickup truck and that this will not affect the upcoming derby on Jan. 27 and 28.
“Nobody should be on the lakes right now with a vehicle of that size,” he said. “The derby doesn’t support anybody getting out there on the ice this early. We still have almost three weeks to go before the derby, and we anticipate that the lakes will all be frozen good and solid for people walking or taking snowmobiles.”
Pelletier said the ice where the truck fell through was likely less than three inches thick. Some areas of the lake, like the coves, have more than six inches of ice and are being fished by people with cabins or smelt shacks. He said the lake is currently accessible via snowmobile only, and that he has not seen any vehicles anywhere else on the lake.
The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife’s ice safety page says it’s safe to walk on 4-6 inches of good ice; snowmobiles and ATVs can go on 5-7 inches; 8-12 inches supports cars or small trucks; and 12-15 inches should hold a medium-sized truck.
Pelletier said derby officials’ recommendation for ice fishers is to “know before you go.”
“In other words, walk out slowly and check the thickness every few yards with an auger,” Pelletier said. “We don’t encourage people to go out without checking the thickness of the ice as they go.”
Editor Mike Dowd contributed to this report.
