On February 4th, 83-year-old Thomas Lee was driving across iced-over East Okoboji Lake in Okoboji, Iowa in his Jeep when the ice cracked and the vehicle began to sink. A small band of good samaritans rushed to his aid and managed to rescue both Lee and his six-year-old dog Cooper. Thankfully, all involved escaped serious injury during the rescue effort.
According to local news reports, Lee was on his way to his son-in-law’s fishing shack when the incident occurred. The lake is often frozen solid enough for people and even some vehicles to traverse it safely but the weight of Lee’s Jeep proved too much. When the ice cracked and the Jeep Wrangler began to sink, multiple individuals noticed and acted.
“I got on the bumper of the rear and tried opening the back door, but all the windows were locked,” said Joe Salmon, 17, who spoke to Yahoo. “But one guy gave me a knife, and I hit the back glass a couple of times.” Before reaching the Jeep, Salmon had already called the police but he and four other bystanders decided to act rather than weigh on authorities.
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The Dickinson County Sheriff’s Office called out the quintet for its heroic actions on its Facebook page. Evidently, it’s not the first time that a vehicle had fallen through the ice in this very spot. On January 27th, it posted an update surrounding a UTV that went down in the same location.
Thankfully, that spot, in particular, is only a few feet deep so neither the UTV nor Lee’s Jeep ended up completely submerged. The Sheriff’s Office also updated everyone on the good news that both Lee and his puppo Cooper are dried out and doing well despite the dangerous accident.
“I want to thank the people who helped and the store that took the dog in and dried him off,” Lee said. Cooper certainly looks wet and a bit chilly in the only photo of him on the Facebook page but he and Lee are survivors which is what really matters in the end.
