Snowmobilers are being warned to stay off of lakes after a pair of accidents in the past few days claimed the life of a local resident.
Scott Hartley, age 43, was out snowmobiling on Jan. 1 when his machine went through open water on Redstone Lake sometime after 7 p.m. Hartley was pulled from the water by friends, but as the group made their way to the shore by crawling on the thin ice Hartley stood up and once again broke through the ice, disappearing beneath the surface.
Officers of the Haliburton Highlands OPP detachment were dispatched to Redstone Lake in the area of Fisherman’s Trail at approximately 10 p.m. to search for Hartley.
The Dysart fire department responded with 16 firefighters and used rescue suits, ropes and a boat during the attempted rescue. According to the fire department the ice at the scene was only about 1.5 inches thick. The underwater search and rescue unit of the OPP attended the scene on the morning of Jan. 2 and recovered the body of Mr. Hartley.
“We got the call on the first [of January] at just after 8 p.m.,” says Mark McMaster of the OPP.
“They located him the following day at approximately noon. We had two officers that attended the scene on the first, and then on the following day there would have been two officers and the four divers. What most likely occurred was that one of the divers went into the water while the other three stayed on the ice.”
Hartley’s death follows in the wake of a similar incident, which occurred on Dec. 31 on Drag Lake. A 20-year-old man was snowmobiling across the lake when he went through the ice at approximately noon. He was taken to Haliburton hospital suffering from hypothermia.
He had been driving his snowmobile down the lake when it broke through the thin ice. The man, who was the lone occupant on the sled, managed to get up onto the ice and called for assistance using a whistle.
Dysart fire chief Miles Maughan said the fire department got the call at 11:49 a.m. and responded with 12 firefighters.
“We had to do it safely and try to get out there without putting one of our fellas at risk,” says Maughan. “We commandeered a boat from the shore and went out and picked him up.”
Members of the Haliburton Highlands Detachment and EMS personnel also attended the scene. Fire and rescue officials from the municipality are urging residents to take extra caution when traveling on the lakes as ice thickness and quality vary greatly throughout the county.
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