You think you had a bad day!!!

[Peter C. Russell]

Here's some pictures of a near tragedy that happened in my small town. Every year we have a winter carnival on the lake and all over town, Part of the festivities are the snowmobile drags across the lake. It's just like at a drag strip and they also have radar runs which the police lend a radar gun to see who has the fastest sled.

The local snowmobile club brought down it's trail groomer to groom the drag strip and at the end of the day it broke through the ice and sank in 30 feet of water with the operator in it. It sank in seconds and luckily he was able to kick a window out and swim to the surface. He's OK but the machine is not. 130K for the groomer and the dragger, the pictures are of the dive team that came in to lift it. They use air bags to get it to the surface and then winch it of the ice. When it broke through the dragger acted like an anchor. They where able to get the dragger up and of the ice but after 12 hours of work the where only able to lift the front of the groomer. I left at dark and have yet to hear what the outcome is.

Makes you think, for someone this weekend it was almost over in seconds and all for a weekend of fun.

[Peter C. Russell]

Here's a picture of the front, it has a small snow blade and rubber tracks instead of wheels. My son who is on the fire department just called and said they have the front tracks on the ice but are still working on it. Going on 17 hours of recovery. By the way the machine wieghs app. 9000 lbs and the dragger 3000 lbs.