Dental Implants Near White Bear Lake, MN

The ordeal took five people roughly two hours.

The Minnesota Star Tribune

Water gushed from a 2008 Buick on Thursday as cables slowly pulled it from the icy depths of White Bear Lake, where it had sat frozen solid for a month in a nearly vertical position.

Towing company operators who volunteered for the job used two long cables, a tall metal frame and a pulley system with motors to extract the car at an angle from above.

It hadn’t been an easy task; The sedan had been stuck in about 10 feet of water since Jan. 27, garnering attention on social media. Attempts to pull it out last weekend were unsuccessful.

The car’s 41-year-old owner, who was not at the scene Thursday, had told authorities it plunged through a pressure ridge on the lake.

Once the car started to emerge from the lake Thursday morning, operators had to contend with a giant chunk of ice frozen to its bottom. The car’s front doors wouldn’t open, either, so the crew had to wait for water to drain through the front end of the car when it was about halfway out.

The ordeal took five people about two hours, said Corey Albertson, owner of American Towing and Recovery, of Lake Elmo.

The car’s owner was coming up on a 30-day deadline to remove the vehicle, or the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office would have retrieved it. By law, the agency would then charge the owner two to five times the cost it took to pull it out.

Albertson estimated it would have cost the owner about $8,000 for all the work that went into retrieving the car.

“I could tell in his voice and everything he was telling me that, financially, he didn’t have the resources to make it happen,” Albertson said. “I decided to reach out to Bruce’s Legacy to see if we could get a volunteer group together so he didn’t get fined or charged an exorbitant amount of money.”

The group, which extracted and towed the car for free, included Keith Cormican of Bruce’s Legacy of Black River Falls, Wis., and Rex Towing and Recovery of Cannon Falls.

For Karl Erickson, an angler educator, who chronicled the Buick’s days frozen in the ice on social media, seeing it come out of the lake was a relief.

“I’m glad it’s out of the lake,” he said. “Let’s get the pollution out and keep our rivers and lakes clean.”

While winters in Minnesota are often unpredictable, count on the return of the ice-out contest for White Bear Lake and Bald Eagle Lake this year.

As with previous years, participants can submit one entry each with an ice-out date for one or both lakes. There is no fee to participate in the free event and currently no set deadline for entries. For more information and to make a prediction go to rallywba.com.

Participants are encouraged to mention their favorite local business and multiple winners will be declared and drawn at random from those who guess the correct date.

People also can participate on Facebook leading up to the ice-out dates by guessing the ice measurements on specific dates. Prizes include gift cards to local businesses which can be claimed at the contest’s ice-out party at Washington Square Bar and Grill at 4736 Washington Square in White Bear Lake.

Haskins said he’s going after the title of the largest ice-out contest in the country this year. He said he started the contest to support local businesses during the pandemic.

“And my goal was to bring as much attention to the local community, the business community, as I could. You know, just to help give as much benefit and boost to exposure to them. And that’s really still at the core of what the contest is about,” Haskins said.

Ice-outs

The contest is sponsored by Nimble Impressions – Haskin’s marketing agency in White Bear Lake – and Rally WBA.

Winners will be declared after the White Bear Lake Conservation District makes the ice-out official. The conservation district is responsible for declaring an ice-out on White Bear Lake, Haskins said, while he will handle declaring ice-out on Bald Eagle Lake.

According to the state Department of Natural Resources, the definition of a lake ice-out can vary by lake, such as when a lake is 90%, or completely, free of ice or when it is possible to navigate from certain points on the water.

If a person can drive a boat 50 feet off-shore around the perimeter of the lake without running into ice and middle sections of the lake are free of large ice masses, it is considered an ice-out, according to the Rally WBA website.

Last year’s ice-out date for both lakes was March 8. However, by mid-February last year, the ice only measured at seven inches for Bald Eagle Lake. As of Feb. 23 this year, that measurement was 22 inches. The latest ice-out date for Bald Eagle Lake was May 2, 2018; for White Bear Lake, the latest ice-out was May 4 in 2018 and 1950.

Meanwhile, the it’s important to remember lake ice can be dangerous.

On Thursday a car reported to have submerged into White Bear Lake in late January was removed by a private towing company, according to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office. The driver told Ramsey County deputies at the time of the report that he was crossing the lake when his front wheels broke through the ice and water started coming through the floorboards. He was able to exit the car through the front driver’s side window before going home.

The car's owner faced thousands of dollars in fines if they didn't remove the Buick by Thursday's deadline.

WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn. — UPDATE (2/27):

On Thursday morning, American Towing and Recovery posted a statement to its Facebook page saying it would help the car's owner remove it from White Bear Lake "safely and at no cost."

"Today, we're stepping in to assist a local car owner in need by recovering a 2008 Buick Lucerne that's been submerged in White Bear Lake for nearly a month," the post read. "... Despite the owner's financial hardships, we're committed to removing the car safely and at no cost, ensuring the lake returns to its natural state."

The company said the event serves as a "crucial reminder" of the importance of ice safety.

ORIGINAL STORY:

It's become a familiar sight on White Bear Lake.

A white Buick that went through the ice is just sitting there with its tail in the air.

And it's been that way for nearly a month. Now, the car's owner is running out of time to remove it or face some steep consequences.

The Ramsey County Sheriff's Office said it received a call about this Buick through the ice on Jan. 27.

Deputies from the office tracked down the owner, who wasn't hurt. But they told the man he has 30 days to get it out.

Or else, the sheriff's office will do it.

State law allows the law enforcement agency to charge him five times the amount it costs them to get it out of the lake. He has until midnight on Thursday.

"That's what we call a boo boo in technical terms," said Phil Sutherland, who was fishing on Wednesday.

Karl Erickson, with Urban Ice Anglers and Elpis Enterprises, takes kids and introduces them to fishing. While he was out, he put the car on social media.

"It went viral for like, a million views, with people all over the country weighing in," he said.

He spent his morning on Wirth Lake with dozens of kids. It will be his last event of the season.

"It's getting warm," he said. "The ice is starting to go away."

That means the car on White Bear Lake is sinking, too.

We'll see if the owner can reel in this 4,000-pounder in time, or he'll fish or cut bait.

If you would like to donate to Erickson's organization, where they teach kids to ice fish safely, click here.

Related Articles

A car submerged in frozen White Bear Lake is raising eyebrows in Minnesota.

Residents may be used to seeing cold temperatures turn lakes frozen, but a single sedan sinking in the center is a new sight.

Dog Gets Private Canoe Ride Across Frozen Lake After Falling Through Ice into Frigid Water

“It’s definitely not something you see every day in Minnesota,” Karl Erickson, organizer of the Urban Ice Anglers, a group founded to help foster a passion for fishing among young people, told the Minnesota Star Tribune on Feb. 20.

The 2008 Buick Lucerne that has called White Bear Lake its home for nearly a month has gone viral since Erickson began posting photos and videos of it on social media.

“People on the internet love making memes and weird stuff and I thought, 'How about make a meme to raise awareness for the nonprofit [and ice safety]?’ ” Erickson told the outlet.

"I put it on Instagram, and it just went nuts, like a million views," Erickson told CBS News affiliate WCCO. "The reaction on social media's just been all over the place, 'Oh there's a dead body in there.' "

Fans far and wide can rest assured that there’s no dead body trapped in the car.

Workers Rescue Dog from a Frozen Lake and Rush It to the Vet — Only to Find Out It's a Wolf!

A 41-year-old resident accidentally crashed his car through the ice, Ramsey County sheriff's deputies said on Jan. 27, reports the Star Tribune. The man only has a few days left to remove it before a 30-day deadline expires and promised to do so, but weather conditions have made the task more challenging.

According to Erickson, the submerged car provides a safe haven for fish seeking shelter from predators, which has given his students the perfect opportunity to catch them.

In a video shared to the Urban Ice Anglers Instagram account last week, students can be seen sitting in a tent placed over the car. Holes have been drilled in the ice, and their rods have successfully caught fish.

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“John catching a fish for the first time on a sunken @buickusa ????,” the clip is captioned.

“Most cases aren’t as bad as this one, "Cmdr. Mike Servatka told the Minnesota Star Tribune. "Usually they get them out pretty quick."

A white 2008 Buick Lucerne that was stuck in the ice on White Bear Lake for nearly a month was set free on Thursday.

“This is actually the 13th one we've done this year,” said Sam Nelson, CEO of Rex Towing, one of the businesses that helped get the car out of the lake. “Pretty easy deal.”

The car has been stuck since Jan. 27 when the owner, a 41-year-old man, drove it over a pressure ridge on the frozen lake at night and it broke through the ice. The owner was able to get out of the car and left it half-submerged.

With its front end plunged in the water and its back end sticking up, the car had driven viral social posts and even attracted visitors. The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office said the owner had 30 days to remove the car or face hefty fines.

A Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson confirmed the owner got help from a private tow company that donated its services.

American Towing and Recovery of Lake Elmo, Bruce's Legacy of Black River Falls, Wisconsin, and Rex Towing and Recovery of Cannon Falls posted on Facebook that they worked pro bono on behalf of the owner to safely remove the vehicle.

Nelson said Bruce’s Legacy, which does underwater diving and recovery of vehicles, built an apparatus they used to get the car out. He said so far the trio has removed cars, UTVs and even an ice-fishing house.

“We did it free of cost for the publicity on it. Hoping, you know, maybe we can help out the community, since the thing was pretty viral, so we figure, well, we'll go and help them out,” Nelson said.

The group got together around 8 a.m., got on scene around 9:30 a.m. and had the car out before noon, Nelson said.

The owner was not there but was able to get his possessions out of the car before the workers towed it to the scrapyard, he added.

The Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office livestreamed part of the removal online.

“Our deputies fenced off the area around the hole and stuck a bunch of warning signs in the ice to alert anyone in the area of the danger,” the Sheriff’s Office posted on Facebook. “If you're planning to head out on ice, know the lake (especially if you're going out at night), stay alert, and remember there is no such thing as ‘safe ice.’“

MPR News reporter Nicole Ki contributed to this story.