Dale Haugerud feels like he’s been given a second chance after a dramatic rescue from the frigid waters of Kisseynew Lake.
The Flin Flon retiree spent more than two body-numbing hours waiting for help before a quick-thinking miner pulled him from the lake last week.
“Five [more] minutes, I was done,” says Haugerud.
Haugerud, 67, was travelling on Kisseynew Lake on his ATV on Tuesday evening, April 26, when his machine descended through the ice. Initially panicked, he kept his head above water by resting his arms on the edge of the hole left by his quad.
Behind him was friend Sheldon Wall. Wall stopped his ATV and attempted to toss Haugerud a cable, but the ice was too thin to get close, dictating a terrible choice.
“I told him, ‘I can’t get to you. All I can do is go for help,’” recalls Wall.
“Honestly that was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life, was leave him, because honestly I thought I would never talk to him again.”
Wall’s grim prediction was based on factors of time and distance. Haugerud was about 45 minutes outside of Flin Flon, and Wall still needed to reach cell range to call for help. Wall didn’t expect his friend to last an hour in those bone-chilling waters.
But Haugerud caught a break when Wall encountered six other men while zipping toward shore. The men motioned for Wall to hang a right to avoid sinking his ATV, but he thought they were instructing him to stop, which he did.
At a standstill, Wall’s quad soon went through the ice and became partially submerged. When he reach-ed shore, he told the men about Haugerud’s plight.
Wall left with another ATVer to call for help. Three of the other men on scene – Shane Radics, Keith Brown and Derrick Neill – hopped on ATVs to try and find Haugerud.
Haugerud was still submerged from the chest down, uncertain whether he would live to see another night. His initial panic had given way to a calmness required to survive such crises.
Some 40 feet of ice and open water separated him from a small rock island. He had earlier tried to break through the ice by clobbering it with his elbows and fists. He relented when he realized the open water would claim his life, as he cannot swim.
At one point Haugerud swung his submerged foot up with a sharp kick, smashing a hole through the icy terrain that enveloped him. He reached over and stuck his hand in the opening, thinking it would hold his lifeless self in place if necessary.
“I didn’t want my kids to suffer while they were looking for my body,” he says.
Yet help was on the way. Radics, Brown and Neill quadded several kilometres to Haugerud’s suspected location. It was dark now, and pushing 10 pm.
The men hollered out for Haugerud. When he answered their calls, they could not see him but knew he was on the opposite side of the small rock island visible from shore.
Of the three men, only Radics, a 39-year-old miner and Flin Flon native, could swim. He swiftly removed his heavy gear and donned a floater for the swim to the island.
“I think there was some desperation in [Haugerud’s] voice when we called out to him the one last time before I jumped in the water,” Radics says. “Something told me, ‘You know what, you don’t have a lot of time. Whatever it is you’re going to do, and whatever it is you’re going to encounter, you need to do it, and you need to do it now.’”
From the island, Radics spotted Haugerud about 40 feet away. He tossed a rope out to his target, but missed. A second try, another miss. A third attempt landed the rope right in front of Haugerud, who tied it around his arm.
As Radics pulled, the rope sliced through the thin layer of ice. Haugerud dropped below the bitter surface.
“At that point I thought I lost him. I thought he let go,” says Radics. “But there was still…weight on it. ‘Nope, he’s still on, he’s gotta be on it.’”
Haugerud resurfaced near the island, still conscious. Radics managed to pull the much larger man – and his soaking wet snowmobile suit – up onto the island. By then Haugerud had been in the water for more than two hours.
Radics removed most of Haugerud’s wet clothes and built a fire. Radics took off the wet t-shirt and pajama pants he himself was wearing and placed them by the flames. Once they were dry, he put them on Haugerud.
Wearing nothing
but socks and underwear, Radics made sure Haugerud kept talking, whether it was about family, work – anything. He rubbed Haugerud’s arms and shoulders to see whether the downed ATVer could still feel sensations.
Radics says he kept the fire burning for about three hours. Eventually rescue personnel reached the remote scene and transported Haugerud to hospital.
Haugerud has difficulty remembering parts of the ordeal. He says he drifted in and out of consciousness due to the cold and shock.
Now out of hospital and back home, Haugerud is publicly expressing his gratitude to everyone who helped him, including Radics and his two friends, the RCMP, firefighters, hospital staff, a local minister who was on scene and everyone who prayed for his safety.
“Altogether it looked like to me 50 to 60 people came out to help,” says the retired Hudbay labourer and father of two.
Perhaps surprisingly, Radics has no formal rescue training, nor did he know Haugerud personally. And despite all of the accolades he has and will receive, he insists he did nothing special.
“I just knew something had to be done,” Radics says. “I don’t know if I could live with myself knowing if I didn’t do something that he obviously wouldn’t be here today.”
Haugerud’s mishap was not an isolated incident. He says his ATV was one of five quads or side-by-sides to go through the ice in the same region of Kisseynew Lake that evening. (Fortunately, the other drivers got to shore much sooner than Haugerud).
Sheldon Wall, Haugerud’s friend and a long-time ATVer, says the condition of the ice deteriorated rapidly, making it unsafe in a matter of hours. Haugerud went through the ice as he and Wall were returning from a fishing trip.
During his friend’s ordeal, Wall says he was told the Flin Flon Fire Dept. refused to respond to the incident because it was out
of its jurisdiction. This created a stir in the com-munity, but Fire Chief Jim Petrie said his department would have responded if asked and in fact lent drysuits to the Creighton firefighters who were summoned.
Asked if the experience has highlighted that difficult truth of life – that none of us is here forever – Haugerud is candid.
“That’s probably why I’m breaking down bawling every time I think of it,” he says. “But I’ve got nothing I want to change.”
