It Took 9 Epic Hours To Get This Truck Out Of A Frozen Lake

    "You kind of make it up as you go, depending on what the ice does."

    Ishmael N. Daro
    by Ishmael N. Daro

    BuzzFeed Social News Editor, Canada

    A towing crew in Saskatchewan worked an entire day to free this truck from a lake after it fell through and froze in place.

    TRK Towing

    Tyler Temple — the owner of TRK Towing in Lumsden, Saskatchewan — said the driver was on the lake at night dropping friends off at an ice fishing tournament and ended up getting lost.

    "He took a wide path around the pier and went a little too wide," Temple told BuzzFeed Canada. "He got disoriented and didn’t realize how far over he went, and basically drove into ice that was an inch thick."

    The truck sank into the water and froze in place. The cabin also filled with water and froze solid, turning the whole vehicle into an ice cube.

    TRK Towing

    Temple said he's rescued vehicles from lakes before, but "this was the most challenging one."

    "They’re all different, and it’s a new challenge, each one," he said. "You kind of make it up as you go, depending on what the ice does.”

    Temple's crew used chainsaws, sledgehammers, and chisels to break up the ice around the truck.

    TRK Towing

    The crew was trying to get the vehicle closer to the thick ice where it could be winched up out of the water, but much of the lake's ice wasn't thick enough to support the weight of the truck.

    The crew tried to angle the truck out of the water with a makeshift ramp made of wooden posts.

    TRK Towing

    “The ice was still too thin even for that method, but it did work for a little bit of it," Temple said.

    "We ended up having to cut and cut and cut, and then smash and cut and smash some more. We basically cut probably 100 feet of ice with the chainsaw and smashed it off until we could get to the thicker ice to prop it up.”

    The crew finally managed to drag the truck out of the water after more than nine hours out on the lake. "It was a real feeling of accomplishment."

    TRK Towing

    "Everyone was safe, no equipment was wrecked, and the vehicle was extracted with a minimum of damage," Temple said. "But yeah, we were all a little bit sore this morning.”

    So let this be a warning to you: Don't drive onto the lake unless you're super duper certain the ice can hold you.

    TRK Towing