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WINNEBAGO COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPT

Date: February 1999
Rescued: Two snowmobilers
Pilots & Rescue Team: Captain Dave Barter, Battalion Chief Rick Krumenauer, Kurt Heid and Chuck Hable

Hovercraft Response Saved Two Lives by Ed Lowe ~ The Post-Crescent Regional, February 3, 1999

OSHKOSH - It was just before 6 p.m. Monday when the call arrived. The fire alarm sounded within moments. A minute later, one of the Winnebago County Sheriff's Department's two Hovercrafts were headed to the scene from a fire station just a mile away.

Two people, who had broken through Lake Winnebago whole riding a snowmobile, drowned before the Hovercraft touched the ice. The two on a second snowmobile who survived did so because of the Hovercraft and its well prepared crew. Oshkosh Fire Department Captain Dave Barter is certain of that.

"We feel very sad that two people lost their lives, but we feel very good about the fact that we were able to save the two others." said Barter, who piloted the craft Monday with the help of Battalion Chief Rick Krumenauer. "I can't say how proud I was of the way our guys responded. We were able to save two lives. It just doesn't get any better than that."

Barter and three other firefighters had the surviving man and child out of the water less than 20 minutes after the call arrived. That could not have happened without the Hovercraft.

The two Hovercrafts, stationed in Oshkosh and Menasha, are manned by firefighters. The machines see little, if any, duty during the warmer months when boats handle the rescue work.

The Hovercrafts respond to calls in neighboring counties as needs arise, explained sheriff's deputy Steve Herman, who managed the Hovercraft response unit before it became the duty of the fire department three years ago.

Herman said he knows of no other Hovercrafts available for rescues in the Fox Valley south of Brown County.

"Sheriff (Michael) Brooks and I felt the fire department could do a better job with it than we could because they're ready to go 24 hours a day, 365 days a year," he said.

In about the time it would have taken the sheriff's department to track down the qualified officers, equip them and assemble a team, the firefighters had already rescued the survivors, John Leyhe, 42, and his son Martin, 7.

"I would say we were out the door a minute after the alarm and at the lake about two minutes later, " Barter said. "Then it probably took us another three or four minutes before we found them in the water."

The team found the father holding his son with one arm, clinging to a piece of broken ice with the other, Barter said.

"He was calling out, terrified, screaming," Barter said. "He had made up his mind that he wasn't going to let his son die."

The Hovercraft stopped several yards from the survivors, its crew fearful the wind from the craft would send chunks of ice crashing into the survivors.

Firefighter Kurt Heid and Chuck Hable jumped into the water and wrestled their way past several large, jagged chunks of ice to reach the pair.

"I can't say enough about those two," Barter said of Heid and Hable. "They laid their lives on the line to save those people."

Coincidentally, the Hovercraft team was at the same stretch of lakeshore hours before the mishap occurred. The foggy, misty weather scrapped the day's training plans, but the team took note of the available boat launches - just in case."

"We have 10 or 12 guys who are trained with it now, and we'd be drilling almost non-stop for the last month or two," Barter said.

Deputy Michael Woods had just finished dinner when he was called to retrieve the body of Douglas Dochterman, 46. His 6-year old son, Daniel, also died.

Woods, a member of the sheriff's department's dive team for nine years, said divers must respond quickly, calmly and decisively to have any hope of saving lives.

"This is one of those situations where if you don't want to be the first one in, you don't want to be on the (diving) team," he said.