Meredith Bay ice was not thick enough to support pick-up

MEREDITH — A pickup truck went through the ice on upper Meredith Bay around 5:30 a.m. yesterday morning while seeking to set up a vending station at the New England Pond Hockey Classic.

The driver, John Ash, 44, of Laconia, was some 100 yards from shore, where the ice was just four inches thick. The moving water from the outlet of Lake Waukewan at Mill Falls kept the ice from forming to a greater thickness. About 10 yards away, authorities say, the ice was 10 inches thick.

When Ash heard the ice cracking, he lowered his window and threw the truck in reverse, but the front end plunged through the ice and settled on the bottom of the lake in approximately six feet of water. Ash squeezed through the window of the truck to escape without harm.

When conservations officers of the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department arrived at 6 a.m. Gulbicki's Towing & Auto Repair had begun pulling the truck from the lake with chains and winches.

Sergeant Bradley Morse of the Fish and Game Department cautioned that ice dopes not form consistently or uniformly. In particular, he noted that ice can be dangerously thin in areas with a current such in inlets and near outlets. As a rule of thumb, he said that the United States Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory at Hanover recommends at least six inches of hard ice for foot and between eight and ten inches of hard ice for snow mobiles and all-terrain vehicle travel.