It was a huge sheet of ice that was breaking up by the minute.
This was the situation for 27 people who were ice fishing on March 9, 2012. Firefighters and emergency crews were scrambling to help them.
“Guy was standing on a 10 square-foot piece of ice. Then the helicopter yanked him off. He was pretty worried,” one man recalled on the day of the incident.
Much like this season, the temperatures were up and down that winter. Oro-Medonte Mayor Harry Hughes remembers the day fondly.
“When you looked out in the lake with that ice flow going out and seeing the big waves and some of those waves were, I would say, six or seven feet high and you knew that was going to break up.”
Thankfully everyone made it off the ice. Five years later, a lot has changed when it comes to being prepared.
Oro-Medonte now has two fire halls equipped with rescue gear, instead of one.
“If the same incident was to happen today we'd have a much faster response by our people on site here,” says Oro-Medonte fire chief John Wigle.
The township has implemented a new bylaw that could see people fined for rescues in cases where there were warnings.
“The bylaw says that we can issue a fine of up to $1,000 for each person that we rescue,” says Hughes.
All local fire departments are signing on to a new agreement providing consistent ice and water rescue training across the board.
A similar and more drastic situation happened on the south side of the lake 20 years ago this winter. About 300 people were rescued off the ice near Jackson’s Point. That effort took nearly half a million dollars in resources.
The man who was mayor at the time stands by his words.
“I said a long time ago that you can't legislate stupidity and if people want to go on the ice when they know it could be dangerous, then they should pay for their own rescue,” says former Georgina mayor Rob Grossi.
Hughes agrees. He says people who take unnecessary risks when warnings have been issued should be on the hook for the entire rescue.
