With the help of four strangers, Salmon rescued the man and his dog Saturday after their car plunged through a thin layer of ice over East Okoboji Lake in northern Iowa. Salmon said he didn’t pause before barreling down a nearby hill and into the frigid water, determined to help.
“I didn’t really think about why or anything,” he told The Washington Post. “I wanted to make sure he was going to be okay — to get him out.”
Salmon, of Spirit Lake, Iowa, credits a familiarity with the area and the speed and agility gained through playing three sports — wrestling, track and football — with preparing him to meet the moment. He said he and his mom were ice fishing and watching snowmobile drag races on the lake when the Jeep passed by, bound for the spot where two lakes meet below a highway overpass.
Salmon knew from experience that a strong current under that bridge prevented the water from fully freezing. Just a week earlier, two all-terrain vehicles had fallen through the ice in the same spot.
“A full-size car going there,” he said, “I knew it wasn’t going to end well.”
So, as soon as the Jeep passed him, Salmon started following with his phone in his hand in case he had to summon help. When the car crashed, Salmon turned around and yelled toward his mom, “He just went through!” Then, he said, he called 911 as he sprinted across the hardened snow toward the Jeep, ignoring the pain from the ankle he had sprained while wrestling several days earlier.
As Salmon stripped off his boots and snow gear, four other people waved at the man in the driver’s seat, desperately signaling to him to get out of the Jeep. Someone yelled that there was a child in the car — mistakenly, it turned out — and any doubts left in Salmon’s mind about the right course of action evaporated. He had to get in the water.
Salmon waded in up to his chest and tried to open the Jeep’s back door, but it was locked. Suddenly, he felt the front of the car jolt down and saw the water start rushing in faster.
“In my mind I was like, I know we need to do this fast,” he said.
As Salmon hacked four times at the window with the knife, a drone flew overhead, capturing photos and video of the rescue. Local photographer Tom Gustafson had been snapping shots of the snowmobile racing and pivoted to capture Salmon’s efforts when he saw the dangerous scene.
After tossing the dog out of the car, Salmon pulled the man’s foot from where it was trapped between a seat and the center console. The man got stuck again — this time between a seat and the roof — and Salmon crawled the rest of the way into the car. Folding down a seat, he grabbed the man under his shoulders.
With the help of bystander Kody Harrelson, Salmon pulled the man out of the car and onto the frozen snow. Several people helped the man walk to the nearby Okoboji Store, a restaurant, to change out of his wet clothes. He was taken to a hospital and was “doing well,” the Dickinson County Sheriff’s Office said.
An EMT treated a few cuts on Salmon’s hand, and the restaurant gave him dry clothes.
Then, Salmon said, he went back to fishing — an activity that he finds calming.
“It’s something I really love doing, and that particular day was the first time in 17 years I got my mom to go ice fishing again,” he said.
His mother used to go ice fishing with her father and their family friend, Salmon said. After both died, she no longer wanted to do the activity that used to be a bonding ritual.
But on Saturday, before her son’s heroics, Salmon had finally convinced her to go with him. It was a balmy 30 degrees, up from frigid temperatures the week before, and Salmon had good luck on the lake. As he watched the drone video of the rescue, a flag went up on his rod, signaling that he had a catch.
Harrelson, for his part, spent the evening relaxing in a hot tub. Since the rescue, he has watched the drone photographer’s footage several times.
“Knowing the outcome, it’s a happy feeling watching it and knowing we did something good that day,” said Harrelson, 26. “But I’m sure at that point in time, him watching, it was kind of a scary deal.”
Despite the frenzy, Salmon still wanted to return to the lake on Sunday. He set up his rod and returned to ice fishing, just as he had many times before.
To his delight, his mom came with him again.
