Green Bay, Wisconsin (AP) —Authorities have rescued 27 people from a lump of crushed ice from the shores of Green Bay Bay in eastern Wisconsin, the sheriff’s office said on Sunday.
The Brown County Sheriff’s Office reported that no injuries were reported in the incident that took place on Saturday morning north of Green Bay, part of Lake Michigan. Many of the 27 rescued were ice fishing at the time of the incident.
The ice block was floating about three-quarters of a mile during the rescue, about a mile away from the coastline before everyone was brought to hard ground. Officials said the stranded people were in the ice stick out about 90 minutes away.
According to the sheriff’s office, the ice blocks may have deviated from the coastline due to the movement of barges through the bay. Shane Nelson, who was on his first ice fishing tour, said it sounded like someone had shot a gun.
“We thought it was interesting, got out of our shanti, looked and people were screaming on the ice we were separating,” Nelson said. WLUK-TV.
Airboats from the Brown County Sheriff’s Office and the United States Coast Guard were able to rescue eight passengers at a time.