“When I got out to the hole where the fishermen had fallen through the ice, there was still one man in the water, so I took off my jacket and tried to get him out of the water with it,” explained Mason, who said he laid down on the ice but was unable to pull the man up.
“I was able to get him out of the water and put him into a fishing sled,” said Mason. “At that point I started taking his wet clothes off of him, and then took off my dry shirt and put on him. I was able to move him and the sled about two feet away from the hole, but then the ice broke and we both fell into the water. I was able to get myself out of the water but he couldn’t get out. By then, my hands were too cold to pull him out again myself, so that’s when I grabbed him and just held his head and hand out of the water as long as I could.”
–written by Philip Tortora, excerpted from the Burlington Free Press