Authorities rescued 34 people from a floating chunk of ice that broke away from shore in the bay of Green Bay in eastern Wisconsin, the sheriff's office said Sunday.
No injuries were reported in the incident that happened Saturday morning north of Green Bay, in the arm that's part of Lake Michigan, the Brown County Sheriff's Office reported. Many of the 34 people rescued were ice fishing at the time of the incident.
The chunk of ice floated about three-quarters of a mile during the rescue and was about a mile from the shoreline by the time everyone was brought to solid ground. Authorities said the stranded people were on the separated ice shove for about 90 minutes.
Brown County Sheriff, @sheriffbc/Twitter
A barge traveling through the bay may have caused the ice chunk to break off the shoreline, the sheriff's office said. Shane Nelson, who was making his first ice fishing excursion, said the noise sounded like somebody had fired a gun.
“We thought it was interesting, got out of our shanty, took a look and people were yelling on the ice, ‘We’re separating,’" Nelson told WLUK-TV.
Airboats from the Brown County Sheriff's Office and the U.S. Coast Guard were able to rescue eight passengers at a time.
Note: The total number of rescued individuals was updated on January 11, 2022, from 27 to 34 based on the latest information from the Brown County Sheriff's Office.
Rescuers from across Europe rushed to a cave in Turkey on Thursday, launching an operation to save an American researcher who became trapped almost 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) below the cave's entrance after suffering stomach bleeding.
A judge sentenced “That ’70s Show” show star Danny Masterson to 30 years to life in prison Thursday for raping two women, giving them some relief after they spoke in court about the decades of damage he inflicted.
Wondering what to watch this weekend? This week we have the latest Power play, looking for a home overseas, the quintessential mother-daughter duo from the aughts, and a YouTube comedy series that never gets old.
A windsurfer who went missing off Florida's Space Coast the day that Hurricane Idalia made landfall last week has been declared the state's second death from the Category 3 storm, officials said Wednesday.
A Florida man who was attempting to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a man-made hamster wheel is facing federal charges after it took the U.S. Coast Guard five days to bring him ashore, according to a criminal complaint filed in Miami.