New York Rescue Team Saves Man Trapped By Ice On A Boat Near Lake Champlain

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Forest Rangers perform an ice rescue after one boat became locked in place by ice.

You might ask yourself, why would someone need to be saved from a boat in Upstate New York during the late months of fall. Certainly nobody is just sailing around, are they? In this case, the individual was living on the boat at the time.

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On Wednesday December 10th, at approximately 6:25pm, the Essex County Sheriff’s Office reached out to the DEC for Forest Ranger assistance with an ice rescue on Lake Champlain.

A 33-year-old from Montreal was living on a sailboat that was anchored to its location. The cold weather caused ice to form, locking the boat in place more than a mile from shore. Rangers Perryman, Quinn, and Thompson used an airboat and broke the ice on the way to create a path to the sailboat.

They say, if your boat get locked in by ice, you should stay with the boat, assess damage and call for help. In this case, Rangers helped the subject onto an airboat and transported them to shore.

In an unrelated icy incident, on December 14th, Forest Rangers responded to a call for a mountain biker with a broken ankle at Edgewood Oak Brush Plains Preserve in Suffolk County.

Other mountain bikers had already found the injured person, wrapped them in coats, and found the shortest way to evacuate. Ranger Scott and the other rescuers moved the patient to a sled and pulled the patient to the fire department UTV. The UTV transported the biker to an ambulance.