TOWNSHIP 5, RANGE 9 – Tow truck operator Michael Witham II has pulled vehicles of all kinds out of strange situations but none as bizarre as he faced on Saturday.

The 29-year-old Milo man was driving his 1999 Dodge pickup truck on Ebeemee Lake from his family’s island to shore at about noon when he got stuck in what appeared to be about 18 inches of ice, he said.

Located at about the middle of the lake, the truck fell through the top layer of what was actually a small vertically layered mixture of slush, ice and water: 6 inches of ice, 6 to 8 inches of slush and water and another 6 to 8 inches of ice, he said.

“It didn’t make any sense,” Witham said Sunday.

Witham had driven over that area Friday night with a load of firewood in the truck bed in pouring rain and warmer temperatures without a problem, he said.

“If I would have went 20 feet the other way, there was no three shelves of ice,” Witham said. “It was all one layer.”

Not panicking, Witham walked back to his family’s camp and telephoned his father to bring up a wrecker from the family business, Witham Garage and Towing of Milo. But within about three hours, the truck fell through all the ice and settled to the lakebed about 18 feet below the surface.

Witham’s trip from the island to the lake’s Fire Road 2 connector went from a one-minute jaunt to a 13-hour nightmare.

“I was going to wait until this morning when it was 18 degrees out. It would have been perfect,” Witham said regretfully. “It could have gone so easily. … It was just strange.”

Maine Game Warden Glenn Annis, who responded to Witham’s submerged-vehicle report, said no one should drive on any frozen water bodies in Maine, but he sympathized with Witham’s travail.

“That’s a primary example of how ice thickness isn’t consistent anywhere,” Annis said. “Even though it was upwards of 18 inches thick at some points, the ice where his truck went in wasn’t thick enough to support it.”

Normally, January ice on Ebeemee Lake can support a vehicle like Witham’s, but currents and unseasonably erratic temperatures likely caused the precarious ice conditions, Annis said. The lake is about 10 miles northeast of Brownville Junction and about 15 miles southwest of Millinocket.

Adding to Witham’s misery: He had to fish to catch a hook and tow line onto the hitch ball on the truck’s back fender, but the ball broke off almost immediately, he said.

Eventually he and as many as 10 others, using chain saws and two wreckers lashed together, flipped over the truck underneath the ice. Using tow lines secured to the truck’s bumper, they dragged it backward 50 to 70 feet to shore. They had to cut holes in the ice about 12 feet wide as they went, Witham said.

The crew worked from early Saturday afternoon until about 11 p.m., resuming early Sunday and finishing the job at about noon, Annis said.

“The vehicle was pretty well totaled,” Annis said. “Most every piece of sheet metal on it was dented. The windows were all broken out. They really did a number on it trying to get it out of there.”

Annis wasn’t pleased about it, but he had to issue Witham a written warning for failing to report a motor vehicle submersion. Under state law, submersions must be reported immediately to help limit environmental damage and prevent water or ice navigation problems, he said.

“They had the resources to get the truck out of there, and nobody got hurt. They even agreed to cordon off the area with ribbons where it went through,” Annis said. “It turned out about as well as it could have.”

Witham thought so, too.

“It’s just a truck. They make them every day,” Witham said. “I can fix it.”

nsambides@bangordailynews.net

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