Lincoln, Oneida County dive teams hold ice rescue training exercise

For the Tomahawk Leader

ONEIDA COUNTY – The dive teams from the Lincoln County and Oneida County Sheriff’s Offices recently took part in a collaborative ice rescue training exercise.

The exercise was held on Big Carr Lake, located southwest of Lake Tomahawk in Oneida County, on Sunday, March 12.

A post on the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook page said the exercise involved the simulated rescue of a victim wearing a seatbelt and trapped inside a sunken vehicle.

The dive teams also practiced lost diver rescues, a “particularly important skill utilizing a specialized search pattern to quickly locate a diver who inadvertently becomes disconnected from their tending line and unable to navigate their way back to the hole in the ice,” the Sheriff’s Office said.

Pictured are Lieutenant Andy VanderWyst (left) and Recreation Deputy Travis Watruba (right), who are both SDI-ERDI-certified divemasters. Corrections Sergeant Nick Hoeft (center) currently serves as a line tender while he works toward completing his various dive certifications.

In the post, the Sheriff’s Office reminded the public to stay off unfamiliar areas of ice, as a UTV carrying an adult and child broke through the ice on a local body of water on the evening before the exercise was held.

The Sheriff’s Office said the passengers were “extremely cold and exhausted” and “lucky to safely escape” the breakthrough.