Man rescued last year aids snowmobiler

Published: April 9, 2007 | 5939th good news item since 2003

Police say it was the bravery of a man who used his sweater as a rope that saved the life of a snowmobiler who had crashed through the Oxtongue River.

“The river was running fast under the ice, if he hadn’t reacted quickly and pulled him out we would have been investigating a fatality,” said Const. Harry Rawluk of Huntsville OPP yesterday.

Rescuer Ross Moore knows first hand what it’s like to be in the icy waters of the river, so when he heard the desperate cries for help from his cabin on the shores of the river near here on Thursday evening, he didn’t hesitate.

Moore, 40, ran straight to the ice, taking off his sweater as he reached the open water and using it to pull the man to safety. A snowmobile suit weighed down the bigger man, so it was a struggle to pull him onto the ice, said Moore.

“I nearly got pulled in myself, but I only did what any human being would do,” said Moore, who runs a septic pumping business in Muskoka.

Moore eventually pulled the man onto the ice and then dragged him five metres to shore. The 23-year-old man was taken to hospital where he was treated for hypothermia.

Rawluk said the man from Oxtongue Lake had only been on the river a few seconds when his snowmobile went through the ice.

Although there was no open water, the fast current makes the ice on the river unsafe for snowmobiling at any time, said Rawluk.

Moore calls it passing on a favour. In March 2006, a friend rescued him from the same stretch of river when his kayak overturned, tipping him into the frigid water.

Published in Rescues
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