INDEPENDENCE, Minn. - Joni Bauer is relieved she heard screaming coming from the middle of the lake early Saturday morning.
"I heard this guy yelling 'help me, help me,'" she recalls. "There was a force telling me to get up and investigate it."
Joni alerted her husband, who quickly grabbed a ladder and ran on to Lake Sarah in Independence. It's then when Dan Bauer and other neighbors helped rescue Steven Peterka out of the water. The 57-year old from St. Bonafacious had been on his ATV when he went through thin ice. Peterka had been in the water for close to 30 minutes.
"He was frozen and covered in ice," said Dan Bauer. "It all happened so fast, but something inside me took over. I'm glad he's okay."
It's another example of how unpredictable the ice has been this year. So hard to predict that the Hennepin County Sheriff's Water Patrol is prohibiting cars, trucks, and SUV's on all the lakes in their jurisdiction. Law enforcement will ticket people who use anything larger than an ATV or snowmobile on the ice.
"Here's a guy who was following the rules," says Captain Dave Zimmer with the water patrol in Hennepin County. "It's a good thing those neighbors came to help."
County officials say there have been nine incidents involving vehicles going through ice on various lakes this winter and most of those have been within the past few weeks.
For Joni and Dan Bauer, they're glad they were in the right place at the right time.
"It's been the weirdest year in terms of ice," says Dan. "We just did what everyone else would do in that situation."
Steve Peterka is home from a hospital in Waconia. Family member tell KARE 11 that he is sore and tired, but doing ok.
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