Members of the Saranac Lake Volunteer Fire Department and Ice Palace Workers 101 help launch the fire department’s airboat from the Lake Flower boat launch on Monday after a snowmobiler was reported to have gone through the ice down the lake. The snowmobiler was rescued by a friend and a pedestrian and the fire department chief is urging caution on the ice right now. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

SARANAC LAKE — A snowmobiler who went through the ice on a channel between Lake Flower and Oseetah Lake on Monday was rescued by a friend and a passerby, and was released in good health by the Saranac Lake Volunteer Rescue Squad.

Saranac Lake Volunteer Fire Department Chief Brenden Keough is urging caution on the ice, which he said is “super unpredictable” right now because of the recent unseasonably warm weather.

Shelly Hough was walking her dog in the back of the Edwards Street neighborhood at around noon on Monday when she heard someone shouting for help and called 911. A man’s sled had gone through the ice near Newman’s Island, also known as Honeymoon Island, right where the channel opens up slightly north of Oseetah Lake.

“When I heard somebody yelling I started running toward the water,” Hough said. “It was like being in the right place at the right time.”

There’s not a lot of people walking around that area of the lake. The man was holding on to the ice with his arms, in water that she believes is around 11 feet deep.

“He was in there,” Hough said.

She had her dog on a leash in one hand, and a stick in the other, and couldn’t pull him out. But she knew the man and called a friend of his who was waiting for him further down the lake. The friend came to the rescue with a thick rope and helped pull his friend out of the water.

Hough’s call brought a quick response from the fire department, which had its airboat out at the Lake Flower boat launch within minutes.

Keough said the man was picked up by the SLVRS at the end of Edwards Street but he refused treatment or a ride to the hospital and was deemed not hypothermic. He was mostly wet from the waist down.

“I’m sure he was cold,” Keough said.

Keough said the man’s sled is likely still in the water.

There was one casualty of the rescue — a portable restroom at the boat launch, next to the Winter Carnival History Hut, was picked up and blown over on its side by the prop wash from the airboat rotor.

The blades, turned by a 640 horsepower engine — like an engine off a high-performance sports car, Keough said — tossed the portable restroom like it weighed nothing.

After the rescue was finished, Winter Carnival Chairman Rob Russell placed a call to the portable restroom company asking them to bring a replacement before Carnival starts on Saturday.

Volunteer members of the Ice Palace Workers 101, who were in the midst of building the Palace next to the boat launch, rushed over to help rock and drag the boat toward the water. The powerful blades sprayed them with water as the boat took off. Some members of the IPW are also SLVFD members.

Keough said this was a learning experience for launching the airboat on pavement, and has given firefighters some ideas about how to reduce friction for future launches.

He urged caution on the ice and recommended people avoid being out the water in certain areas.

“The ice conditions are super unpredictable right now,” Keough said. “It could be good in one spot and bad 10 feet away. … With the up and down weather I wouldn’t trust any ice right now.”

And water is always flowing underneath the ice in the lakes around the village, keeping it thinner than it would if the water was still. The blocks of the Ice Palace are around 10 inches thick, but that is because they were harvested from Pontiac Bay near the corner of River Street and Lake Flower Avenue, where the water is not moving and ice can grow.

“This is more of a river than a lake,” Keough said of Lake Flower, Oseetah Lake and the channel between them.

On Jan. 24, 2023, at around the same time of year, SLVFD members assisted in an ice rescue when a snowmobiler went through the ice in the narrows on Lake Flower in front of Harbor Hill Cottages. At the time, Keough said the rider jumped off their sled before it was completely through the ice and landed on top of the ice shelf while the snowmobile sunk in about 11 or 12 feet of water.

The fire department on Monday responded with one truck, one airboat and 10 members.

State Department of Environmental Conservation forest rangers and Saranac Lake Village Police also responded to the rescue call.