Happy ending to horror story | A quick-thinking farmer managed to pull himself free from his tractor after it plunged through thin ice and sank to the bottom of a lake
It’s been four weeks since Fred Wall hauled his last load of canola across the ice road near La Crete., Alta.
However, it will be years before he drives across the Peace River without holding his breath.
Just before Christmas, Wall’s tractor fell through the ice when he was building an approach onto his private ice road to haul a load of canola.
He knew the ice road needed to be about 30 centimetres thick to hold his loaded grain truck. He had checked the thickness of the ice a few days earlier with a chain saw to ensure it was adequate.
Read Also
Nutritious pork packed with vitamins, essential minerals
Recipes for pork
On this -27 C day, Wall was pushing snow near the bank, trying to reduce the drop from the bank to the ice, when the tractor fell through the ice and dropped to the bottom.
“It was a weak spot of ice,” Wall said.
“I think since we got a big dump of snow, it was probably an open spot for a bit and the snow came and there was a layer of slush on the hole and froze. It was really white and weak ice. I went straight down.”
He crawled blindly through a broken window of his tractor cab, and the force of the air from the cab pushed him straight to the surface, where he managed to grab the ice before being swept under again.
“I came up and was able to grab onto the ice. I didn’t have any problems with that, but I couldn’t get out,” said the 25-year-old father of four.
The fast moving water kept pushing his legs under the ice, and his heavy insulated snowsuit weighed him down. His heavy snow boots hit something hard as he floundered around and he realized it was the cab of his tractor about a metre below the water’s surface.
“For a bit I did not think I would get out. For a bit I gave up. When I got my feet on the tractor cab, I tried again.”
Planting his feet on the cab allowed him to push himself out of the river and onto the ice.
The Wall farm is a 265-acre operation in an isolated area near La Crete with no road access. The family takes a boat across the river in the summer and must have all their equipment on the farm side of the river before the ice breaks up in the spring,
All his grain is hauled out on ice roads in the winter.
Wall’s father farmed the land for almost 50 years and another family were there before him. He has never known any equipment to drop through the ice in that time.
With only a few old buildings at the farm, Wall didn’t think he should walk back to the farmyard. Instead, he walked across the river and up a steep road to the nearest farmyard.
He took off his gloves before starting to walk to try using his cellphone, but it didn’t work. However, the gloves’ fingers had frozen by then and he couldn’t put them back on.
“It was hard, being so cold, it was hard to move. I was worried about my feet. They were getting pretty cold. I was wondering if I was going to lose toes or limbs,” said Wall, whose thick coveralls and gloves were frozen hard, making it difficult to shuffle down the road.
“It was all stiff. My snowsuit was almost frozen through.”
It was when he saw the headlights of Tina Derksen’s vehicle turning into her driveway about 300 metres away that he realized he might live.
Derksen had just arrived home from La Crete and had sent her son Isaiah, 13, back out to the vehicle to bring in the milk when he heard Wall’s cries for help and raced inside to tell his mom.
The dog was barking frantically when she opened the front door, but she couldn’t hear anyone and thought it must be kids on a nearby snowmobile.
“I was closing the door when he said, ‘Mom, I heard it again.’ ”
She pulled the dog inside and through the fading light could saw a shadow moving up their long driveway. That’s when she heard Wall’s cry for help.
They jumped into the vehicle and drove down the road to Wall.
“He was shuffling his feet and was wearing glasses. Everything was just frosty and icy. He said, ‘I need help, my tractor fell through the ice.’ ”
Derksen and her son got out of the truck and opened the back door and told him to get in, but he said he couldn’t.
“He said he couldn’t get in because he was so stiff he couldn’t bend. I reached out and touched him and his whole entire body was rock, rock hard,” she said.
“We literally had to back him up towards the door. The seats were up in the truck and we pushed him on the chest and he fell over like a stiff board. His legs shot straight up and fell back and we slid him in.”
They slowly drove back to the house with his legs sticking out the open door.
Meanwhile, Derksen called husband, Darrell, and explained the situation and told him to call 911.
Derksen and her son managed to slide him out of the truck and pull him back into a standing position and helped him inside the house.
“In my head I was thinking I needed to get his head, his hands and feet warm and dry first. It was kind of a panicky situation.”
However, Wall’s zippers and boot laces were frozen shut. Isaiah raced for the blow dryer and aimed it at the zippers, while Derksen pulled and yanked the zipper down.
It was when they were pulling off his boots that Derksen noticed Wall’s feet were warm. There was nothing frozen past the rock hard outside layer.
Derksen said she asked Wall how he got out of the tractor cab and then out of the river.
“He said, ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember.’ I said, ‘I know. God helped you out.’ There was no other way. If he was wearing this huge heavy insulated outfit with these big honking boots, it’s a miracle you came out of that flowing river. He agreed. It must have been God.”
Wall spent the night in the hospital and treated for exhaustion. He had no frostbite.
Derksen thinks the strenuous walk up the steep hill must have warmed his interior, while the cold created a shell to keep in the warmth.
“Me and Darrell walk the hill all the time. It’s an incredible walk with shorts, a tank top and running shoes. I can’t imagine how he must have done it,” she said.
Derksen said it was fortunate that the grader had plowed the snow off the road and Darrell had plowed their yard that day, making a smooth surface for Wall to walk.
“I believe if he had fallen he would never have gotten up.”
Wall pulled the tractor out of the river two weeks after the accident, drained the oil and is using it again.
“There are still some leaks from freezing seals. We have been using it to push snow and we hauled the grain out,” said Wall, who is slowly taking the farm over from his father.
“I am more cautious now,” he added, admitting to having a few sleepless nights after the accident.
“The first couple nights weren’t very good. After that I kind of got over it.”
