Crick, crack, splash – What happens when your car falls through the ice

MEREDITH — Lake Winnipesaukee made headlines all the way to Massachusetts after three cars fell through the ice during the Great Meredith Rotary Fishing Derby. To outsiders, this type of event may seem shocking, but for Tim McDonald, co-owner of Marine Meredith Solutions, it’s another day at the office. 

“Any given winter we’ll do 12 to 20 snowmobiles, a handful of side-by-sides, at least two cars a year,” McDonald said. “This is a fairly common occurrence in the Lakes Region. it's just not often reported on.”

Professionals like McDonald utilize certified divers, winches, and even robots in order to safely extract lost vehicles from the water.

“We’ve built a couple systems that allow us to take a couple winch platforms and anchor it to the ice,” McDonald explained. “Once we salvage the vehicle back onto the ice, we have a couple snowmobiles with modified gearboxes that act as a snow tractor and can pull the vehicle back across the lake.”

This was the method used on one unfortunate 2007 Lexus this weekend. According to McDonald, three people were inside the vehicle when the ice gave way. The back passenger and driver got out scot-free, while the front passenger got wet during their escape. Within 40 seconds, McDonald said, the car was gone. The Lexus ended up nearly 40 feet down, crushing its front bumper and ending up on its roof. 

“I never want to discourage people from enjoying the lake, but you need to be mindful, especially this time of year when the weather is changing rapidly,” McDonald said.  

When divers like McDonald move heavy equipment across the ice, they do so in a methodical, slow manner. 

“We drill every 25-30 feet all the way out to the  site and back,” McDonald explained, standing in contrast to the more recreational mode of driving fast across the ice. “It’s funny we talk about when you’re at a high rate of speed, there’s no way to know, it's an assumed risk, the only way to know how much ice you’re on, you need to stop and drill it.” 

In all three cases from the weekend sinking, McDonald said that they were all locals and were no stranger to operating on the ice. “These weren’t amateurs, they were well tenured folks,” McDonald said. “It goes to my point. They've driven across ice their entire life, and they found themselves in a situation that wasn’t good. It's not an isolated incident that happens to an out-of-stater. It's one of those due diligence responsibility issues. I personally do not drive a truck on the ice, ever.” 

Although the ice may appear thick, that’s not always the case, especially for one unlucky Nissan.

“That Pathfinder was over two feet of ice,” McDonald said. “Where it went in there was one foot.”

McDonald cited shifting weather patterns as a culprit in creating unsafe ice conditions.

“When you get these crazy cold and warm  spells, these pressure ridges form,” McDonald explained. “Think about an ice cube. When you freeze it, it freezes upwards. Same thing applies in the lake. The ice freezes and expands to a point where it forms ridges. They rise and fall.”

Despite the obvious risks of ice driving, McDonald was quick to point out that many insurance companies do in fact cover these types of incidents, usually under the category of water damage. 

“Water and flood is water and flood. They don’t necessarily discriminate,” McDonald said. “If you plan on venturing out in the lake, it’s a conversation you want to have with your insurance broker. The majority of snowmobile trails in NH cross bodies of water. It’s always important to check and make sure you’re actually covered on water.”

Once a car is sunk, usually the Department of Environmental Services is called. The owner of a vehicle has about 48 hours, pending weather and safety conditions, to come up with a plan and contact their insurance provider. DES can assist owners with getting in touch with professionals like McDonald to properly extract the vehicles. 

“We have partners with dive shops, there’s a bunch of them that we just know and we put them in touch with people. We don’t hire the divers directly,” explained Gardner Warr, supervisor of the spill response complaint investigation section at DES.“I know when we get a thaw in February, we start having incidents like this or anytime you have large groupings of people.” 

For both DES and recovery professionals like McDonald, environmental protection is the goal. 

“Our number one goal is environmental impact,” McDonald said, citing the dangers of pollutants like oil and gasoline ending up in the water. 

“We work extensively if there is any type of contamination until the lake is clean,” McDonald said. “I like to think of ourselves as stewards of the lake. It’s an awesome feeling to be part of the cleanup effort, and work directly with the state.”

In some cases when a car falls through, recovery teams have to wait until the ice thaws to properly extract it. 

“Last season we did a Toyota Tundra by the backside of Bear Island,” McDonald recalled. “It was very far from shore, late season, we ended up having to go out every day, we had to wait until there was an actual ice-out to float it up there. That’s an absolute worst case scenario.”

At times, multiple diving outlets team up to tackle bigger jobs like the Derby sinking. “We team up with businesses all the time,” said Thomas Wachsmuth, president of Dive Winnipesaukee, who said it was nice to have some help.“We used to be the only ones doing this thing. We’ve been doing this for 35 years.”

In addition to the large groupings like the Ice Fishing Derby increasing the risk of incidents, Warr also cited a recent influx of visitors to New Hampshire as a contributing factor to a recent increase in vehicles falling in water.

“I’ve been seeing a lot. Last year we were very busy. You had a lot of people that wanted to come to New Hampshire in the face of the pandemic. We had a whole bunch of folks that are new to the area, and went exploring and falling through the ice.”

Climate change may also be contributing to increasingly unstable ice conditions. 

“I grew up in Meredith, I remember as a kid ice fishing on Meredith Bay, you’d drill until you reached the end of the auger, because there was four to five feet of ice and that was the norm.” McDonald said. “Climate change or weather or whatever the reason is, it's just the stark reality of it. We don’t get the winters we used to or the prolonged extreme cold we used to. The world’s a changing palace and we have to be willing to adapt and be aware.”