West Union man survives local ice fishing incident

New Albin Fire Department, local hovercraft owner help rescue man from icy waters of Minnesota Slough

Editor's Note: The following article was first published in the February 10, 2016 edition of the Fayette County Union newspaper of West Union. It is being reprinted here with permission from the Fayette County Union and includes some additional comments from local individuals involved in the rescue effort.

by Chris DeBack,
Fayette County Union
cdeback@thefayettecountyunion.com

Les Keune is an experienced ice fisherman. Having spent a majority of winters in his adulthood out on the ice, last Friday (February 5) was going to be just another morning with him, the cold and some fish.
Keune was in the Minnesota Slough near New Albin having set out from Army Road onto the Mississippi River with his snowmobile and mobile ice shelter. He made it 1-1/2 miles on the ice before he came to a patch of ice that made him a little gun-shy. He didn’t want to risk an accident, so he got off his snowmobile and began to check out the ice.
“I have fished that place many, many times, and I know the ice down there,” Keune said. “So, I pulled up and stopped, because you can’t drive across the islands. I went down with a spud and sounded out the ice, and it sounded good. There was snowmobile track already through there, so I took off around there.”
Just when he thought he was safe, he felt the snow beneath his snowmobile begin to give. First, the back end of the snowmobile fell into the water and then the front end. He rolled off the snowmobile and began to tread water with his ice armor on.
“I just about started to panic, and I thought to myself, ‘I could get out of this,’” Keune related.
That was when his survival training and 28 years of firefighter service in West Union kicked him into high gear. He immediately calmed down and began to assess the situation. He could see his ice shelter was still above water. As he treaded water, he got the shelter to open up and grabbed ahold of it. This gave him a life preserver.
As he continued to tread water, he rolled back and pushed off a piece of ice to reach for the shelter with his other hand. As he did that, he felt something against his foot.
“I felt something hit my foot, so I dug it in as hard as I could,” he said still shaken. “It was the snowmobile. I held onto the shelter and had my feet on the snowmobile, and I was in water to my chest. I was in seven feet of water. I never would have made it out of there because I can’t swim. The closest piece of ice that wasn’t busted off was 10 feet away.”
It was about 7:20 a.m. when his snowmobile fell into the water. It took approximately four minutes to get himself situated with the shelter. While treading water, he had been in the water up to his neck. His cell phone had been attached to a holder on the upper portion of his bibs by his left shoulder. When he got far enough up out of the water, he reached for his phone. Taking his gloves off, he began to try to operate the phone. However, it was clear it had taken significant water damage.
“I had gone down to about my chin in the water,” Keune recalled. “I got to the screen, and the screen was flickering. I punched in 911 and the numbers went all over the place, and it wasn’t wanting to work.”
After the eighth attempt at dialing 911, he was finally able to get through. He quickly told the dispatcher his story and exactly where he was located. The dispatcher asked him if he wanted her to stay on the line until help arrived. He declined, as he wanted to concentrate on holding onto the shelter.
After what seemed like hours to Keune, a little panic began to creep back into his mind. What if he hadn’t given clear enough directions? What if they couldn’t find him in time? He attempted to call 911 again, but due to the water damage on his phone, he was unable to place the call.
That’s when the West Union man decided to call Fayette County Chief Deputy Jim Davis, to see if he could help. The call went to voicemail, so he tried Jay Schwamman.
“I told Jay I was in big trouble,” Keune continued. “I told him the stuff that I needed him to tell my wife and kids because I couldn’t call them directly. I didn’t want them to hear what I sounded like because I didn’t think I was going to make it. I was already in the water; I was shaking really bad. I thought I was pretty clear, but Jay couldn’t understand me that well, I had to keep repeating myself. I tried to call 911 again and Jim Davis, and then my phone quit working after that.”
By this point, the father of three had stopped shivering, which isn’t a good sign. Hypothermia was quickly beginning to set in.
After what seemed like an eternity to him, help arrived. The New Albin Fire Department asked Jeff Hawes of Waukon, who had been down there fishing at the time, if he would use his hovercraft to go out and grab Keune. With New Albin firefighter Paul Whalen (Editor's note: The accompanying firefighter was actually Ben Reburn and not Paul Whalen) in the hovercraft with Hawes, the duo pulled Keune from the water and raced back to shore. There, a ranger took the exhausted survivor to an ambulance, where they began to wrap him in blankets and used heat packs to begin to bring his core temperature back up. Keune feels he was in the water for approximately 30 minutes.
“Their response was fast, but it didn’t feel like it,” the avid outdoorsman said. “The EMT reached down and grabbed my arm; I reached up and grabbed onto the side of the hovercraft, trying to get a good hold with my hand. Hawes did a couple circles with the hovercraft, so that I ended up onto the ice, and they pulled me into the hovercraft and took off up the river.”
Keune knows he is very fortunate. There were moments when he thought it was the end. However, he is quick to credit the special ice-fishing gear he was wearing with saving his life.
“It was horrible, no doubt about it,” Keune said. “I was from the chest down solid red. It looked like I had a really bad sunburn. Because I had high-quality clothing on that was meant for ice fishing, it was holding in some body heat. I think the good-quality clothes bought me an extra 10 minutes.”
His advice to those who want to ice fish is to check, check and check the ice. He also advised buying a float suit; his will be coming in the mail in a couple of days.
“You have a lot of time to think; you think about how it is going to affect your family, your friends and everyone around you,” Keune closed. “I don’t know what I could have done different to make sure it didn’t happen.”
This near-death experience isn’t going to stop Keune from enjoying something he loves to do, but it has given him a greater appreciation for the ice he steps out on.

Editor's note: In more recent interviews, the following area individuals involved in the ice rescue effort shared their perspectives below in regard to bringing Keune to safety.

The local individuals involved in rescuing Keune from the icy waters of the Mississippi River were certainly more men of action than words, as each one of them initially said they were just happy everything turned out as it did and were less eager to talk about their own involvement. All the local men involved also said timing and good fortune played significant roles in preventing a completely different type of ending to Keune's story.
As the New Albin Fire Department was preparing its own equipment on the river to make the rescue, Hawes happened to come along with his hovercraft vehicle that New Albin Fire Chief Mike Reburn said may very well have made a life-saving difference in timing for Keune in regard to how much longer he would have had to remain in the icy water. "For our sake, it was good that Jeff came along to assist in the rescue," Chief Reburn said. "We had taken our Gator as far out as we knew we could, but we were still a ways away. If we would have had to cover that final distance on foot, I don't know how much longer he (Keune) could have held on."
Hawes admits that he was "running a little late" for a planned fishing excursion that morning with friend Kenny Colsch of New Albin, or he may have very well already been elsewhere on the river and not available with his hovercraft. Hawes described how Colsch got out of the hovercraft and Ben Reburn, son of Chief Reburn who is also a volunteer firefighter for New Albin as well as a river enthusiast, climbed in and the two took off toward the area where they anticipated they would find Keune. "I thought maybe we would be going out to pick someone up off one of the islands after his snowmobile went through the ice, but when we turned the corner we saw him in the water waving his arms," Hawes relayed.
As Hawes approached Keune with the craft, he said Keune lunged for the side of the boat, pulling it down and forcing it to take on some water, so he had to slowly circle around until they could get to more solid ice and then pull Keune inside the craft. "It all took less than 30 seconds once we got to him," Hawes said. "It was interesting. It all happened so fast that a guy really didn't have time to think much about it, you just knew you had to help. I just wonder what was going through the guy's (Keune's) mind when he was in the water like that for a half hour."
Ben Reburn humbly said he was "just doing my job" when asked what it felt like to make such a lifesaving rescue. "That's what we're there for," he said in reference to the fire department's role in the rescue. "He (Keune) got lucky, it could have been a lot worse. I'm out on the river quite a bit, so I thought I knew where he might be because I know there's a spring that runs right into that same area. It all worked out for the best."
Fellow New Albin firefighter Paul Whalen, who had also suited up in ice gear for the rescue and who had been initially contacted for local comment due to what turned out to be his erroneous listing in the original article as being in the hovercraft with Hawes, said, "Timing is everything. It turned out to be a very fortunate situation for him (Keune) as far as being able to even make the calls he did, having his equipment there to help keep him above water, and having some guys who were late getting out to fish at the same landing we were at come up with their hovercraft and ask if they could help. We had the equipment necessary to get out there and get him, but that hovercraft made it a lot quicker and in this instance, time was crucial."
Hawes said Keune has since reached out to him with a letter saying how thankful he is for all he did to help rescue him. "I'm just glad I could help out and that everything worked out for everybody," Hawes summarized.