Kisseynew Lake was the site of not one but two lifesaving rescues last week.
Fred Pope went through the ice on his ATV and spent at least 20 minutes hanging on for his life before an impromptu rescue effort succeeded.
“I knew damn well if I didn’t get out of there pretty quick I wasn’t coming home,” Pope, a retired trucker and Flin Flon resident, told The Reminder.
Pope and his friend Ron Willey had been fishing on Kisseynew Lake, located about 45 minutes outside Flin Flon, on Tuesday, April 26 when they decided to head back home around suppertime.
Willey was riding his ATV ahead of Pope when the latter man went through. As he clung to the ice around him, Pope could not touch the lake floor. The ice broke each time he tried to pull himself up.
When Willey noticed that Pope had gone through, he stopped and tried to reach him with a rope, but he was too far away and the ice was giving way.
Fortunately Pope, who is not a strong swimmer, was within eyeshot of three men who were cooking supper at a pop-up tent on the ice.
They were fishing buddies Ray Boudreau, Francis Pilgrim and Gord Goodman. Goodman said the group saw Pope go under about 300 to 400 yards away.
Willey approached the men for help. When they gave him a rope, he tied his tow strap – an item he doesn’t normally take fishing with him – onto the end.
From a seemingly solid point on the ice, Willey tossed the strap to Pope. He missed his target by about three feet, but Pope was able to snag the loop of the strap by reaching out with his ballcap.
As Willey pulled Pope out of the water, Goodman and Pilgrim stood on the ice beside him. Suddenly Goodman and Pilgrim went through the ice themselves but were able to climb out to safety.
“Why I didn’t go [through] is beyond me,” said Willey, a retiree.
Soon the four men, including Pope, reached the warmth of the pop-up tent. Willey stripped down to his shirt and pants so Pope could have his dry snowmobile suit. The other men offered other articles of clothing.
Pope had the worst hypothermia Goodman had ever seen: “He was blue and he was shaking like a dog.”
Willey said it took 30 to 45 minutes before Pope appeared stable. Though there were fears Pope would go into shock, Willey said nobody panicked throughout the ordeal.
“Everybody kind of kept their heads and worked together as best we could, and safely,” he said.
Pope was grateful to his rescuers, particularly knowing they put themselves in danger by venturing onto the ice near him.
“It was definitely a real big effort for those guys to step up to save somebody else, because they could have been in [the lake] with me,” he said.
Pope also counts his blessings that Goodman, another retiree, and his two friends happened to be in the area.
“If them other fellas hadn’t have been fishing down at the end [of the lake] there, I would venture to say that I probably wouldn’t be here,” he said.
Pope said he is trying to put the experience behind him but admits he sometimes wakes up and thinks about it. Perhaps over time, he says, he’ll recall it less often.
Earlier in the day, Pope and Willey had been fishing on Kisseynew Lake with friends Dale Haugerud and Sheldon Wall. Pope and Willey left ahead of the two other men.
As The Reminder reported Wednesday, Haugerud survived his own life-threatening ordeal when he was pulled from the lake more than two hours after his ATV went through.
After Pope was rescued, Willey said he had his wife contact Haugerud and Wall’s families to try and warn the men about the ice conditions. Unfortunately, the two men were out of cell range.
Willey said there was no sign the ice was so fragile that day, as Sheldon Wall had traversed across the same area of the lake at 3 pm that afternoon. Pope went through the ice at about 6 pm.
What happened was “unpredictable,” Willey said, adding that many other ATVs were on the ice that day with no problems.
