Sullivan man, son survive sled fall through pond ice

SULLIVAN – A local man and his son are lucky to be alive after the snowmobile they were riding sank into a local pond Friday evening, according to a state game warden.

Dan Carter, 26, and Zachary Carter, 10, were out for a ride on a snowmobile on the eastern shore of Flanders Pond at 5:30 p.m. when they rode off the ice into open water, David Simmons of the Maine Warden Service said Friday night. Carter, finding himself approximately 100 yards from shore in 15 feet of water, managed to pull himself and his son back onto the ice and they made their way to a nearby house, Simmons said.

“They were in the water for at least five minutes,” Simmons said. “We were just lucky on this one.”

Both father and son likely had mild cases of hypothermia, Simmons said, but were not expected to be taken to the hospital. Emergency personnel from the Sullivan Fire Department and County Ambulance went to the scene.

Simmons said Carter, who lives on Thorne Road on the western side of the pond, would have to make arrangements to have the snowmobile removed from the water. He stressed that people should use caution before taking a snowmobile out onto frozen bodies of water.

“It is highly dangerous,” Simmons said. “The ice conditions vary from pond to pond. No ice is safe to drive on, as far as I’m concerned.”

The accident occurred almost exactly two years after a Surry man died while snowmobiling on ice near his home. Vern Crockett, a former Hancock County commissioner and school superintendent in Bucksport, went for a short ride on Lower Patten Pond in Surry on Christmas Day in 2000 when his snowmobile went through the ice.