BROWN COUNTY (NBC 26) — A Green Bay man is recounting his frightening experience after being stranded on ice.
Shane Nelson was one of the nearly 30 people stranded on ice.
“Heard what sounded like a gun shot, so went to investigate. It sounded like a gun shot. I’m thinking ice should be cracking. It cracks all the time,” Nelson said.
It wasn’t until about an hour after hearing those initial blasts when the reality of the situation sunk in.
“We saw the ground moving and we’re slowly, slowly floating away. There was one person I originally I could kind of hear yelling he was like ‘Hey we need to get back into the ice,' ” Nelson said.
As they continued drifting away, Nelson's thoughts drifted to a scary scenario.
“I think it was an original panic, kind of just like, ‘Oh man we might get stranded out here.' Everyone kind of realized, well, we’re in it for the long haul now,” Nelson said.
He shared they had little inflatable boats dispatched before rescue crews brought out the bigger ones.
“The dinghy only made like two or three trips at most because the gap got so big that it wouldn’t been reasonable to go over with the dinghy,” Nelson said.
Once crews got the fan boats out, that made things a tad bit difficult.
“The second time that it came over, the ice is actually thinning out quite a bit and they broke all the ice on their trail. It was just water. We were all just kind of waiting for them, so they had to pull up right next to it. Held the fan boat right next to the ice shelf and loaded us all into the boat,” Nelson said.
Finally in the hands of safety, those stranded were relieved for the happy ending in a chaotic situation.
Nelson grateful for all the hard work rescue crews put in helping get everyone safe and sound.
