DEXTER – A local man and his young son are celebrating the new year thankful for their second chance at life.

Richard Gudroe, 45, and his son, Justin, 13, took a cold, wet plunge through the ice on Lake Wassookeag on New Year’s Day and survived to tell about it.

It was the second such incident involving a father and son who fell through the ice and escaped in recent days. The earlier incident occurred Dec. 27 on Flanders Pond in Hancock County.

Having fished Lake Wassookeag most of his life, the elder Gudroe said he was aware of the precautions that should be taken. In fact, he had checked out the depth of ice on the lake on Tuesday. In most places, there was at least 8 inches of ice, he said Thursday.

Towing a dog sled laden with fishing supplies, the father and son headed over the ice on their all-terrain vehicle at about 8 a.m. They were about three-quarters of the way across the big lake and had turned left toward shore where they planned to fish, when they broke through the ice.

“All of a sudden everything went straight down,” Gudroe said. “All I could think of was this is how you die.”

Gudroe recalled going under water and surfacing under the ice. He said he knew his son was OK because he felt him scrambling on his back making his way to the surface. Gudroe said he then crouched back down in the water and used the seat of the all-terrain vehicle to push himself back toward the surface.

This time he hit the roughly inch-thick ice with his head and managed to break through. He kept clawing away at the surrounding ice until he reached a sturdy patch about 8 inches thick and managed to pull himself out. His son was already on top of the ice, being assisted by other fishermen who were nearby.

It was one dip in the lake that Gudroe says he does not want to repeat, but he still intends to continue fishing.

His all-terrain vehicle later was recovered from about 50 feet of water by scuba divers from Dover-Foxcroft.

The Dec. 27 incident also ended well after Dan Carter, 26, of Sullivan managed to pull himself and his 10-year-old son about 100 yards to shore after their snowmobile plunged into about 15 feet of water in Flanders Pond. The two were in the water at least five minutes and likely had mild cases of hypothermia, according to a warden investigating that accident.