Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

NNSL (Mar 26/99) - A Yellowknife man survived a plunge through the ice while clearing an ice road on Russell Lake, when his D-7 Caterpillar plunged through a fault in the ice March 4.

Rick Sheck, owner of Norpol Powerline Construction, was clearing a portage route when he felt the 22,000 pound machine slipping through the ice.

"I tried to back out and the machine started settling down," he said.

"I shut the engine off and at that point my instincts just took over."

"I realized what was happening and it didn't happen fast. This was happening very slowly."

The fault surprised Sheck, because he'd checked the ice so thoroughly.

"I'd gone in the day before on a snow machine and checked the ice all over the place," Sheck recalled. "I must have drilled 20 holes."

With the interruptions in cold weather, Sheck said a lot of water had puddled under the blanket of snow covering the lake.

"We had an extreme amount of overflow. There was a lot of cracking on the lake, so I went up the left side," he recalled.

"I encountered far less overflow, but I still had to go across a lot of cracks. I checked the cracks and I had more than suitable ice."

"I was less than a kilometre from shore when I came across another crack. I checked it and the ice was suitable, so I turned around to widen it out."

"When I came back to widen it out, there must have been another crack that had come off of it," he said. "When I got over the crack, the machine started to go down."

"So I thought if I jumped, I could make it right off the machine and on to the ice," he said. "The upper-half of my body did."

He slid back into the water and as he scrambled to get up and out on to the ice, the Cat started to sink behind him.

"All of a sudden the machine rolled on its side a bit and came up against me and pinned me to the ice," he said.

"I felt like I was getting cut in half."

"I was pushing as hard as I could against the edge of the ice, trying to push the machine away from me -- it was just a natural thing.

Trapped underwater

"I remember it twisting me around and as the machine went down through the ice, I was still connected to it -- my coveralls were caught on it or something," he said. "It took me down and I was looking right at it."

He said he had his eyes open underwater and could see the daylight shining down from above.

"It took me down underwater and as soon as I went underwater I became free, and I swam up to the surface."

He was unable to pull himself up and out of the water as the snow surrounding the hole was to deep too climb on.

"I turned around and saw a big ice floe about 10 or 12 feet across in the centre of the hole. I swam over to it and climbed up on it."

Sheck did a quick check of his limbs and waited.

"I stood up and was glad to see I had all my body parts, and got my thoughts together. I had to wait five minutes for it to drift back over to the main ice. I could see my son Chris working on the horizon," he recalled.

"He was widening the road behind me, because we were in so much overflow, I wanted him to stay back until I found a route."

Out of the water, Sheck said his clothing was frozen solid and despite the minus 30 temperature, he did not feel cold.

Walking for help

"I had difficulty walking, my coveralls were all bloody and I was leaving a trail of blood on the ice," he said.

"I walked 40 minutes exactly, because I remember checking my watch."

He limped towards his 22-year-old son Chris, his clothing was stiff and hard to move.

Chris Sheck is the third generation in the business. His grandfather, Larry was on the first cat train that came North from Grimshaw in 1939.

When he first saw his dad walking towards him, he didn't think much of it, he said.

"I thought he'd broke down," Chris said. "Then I saw him limping. Then I could see he was just a big ice ball and frozen."

Chris helped his dad into the warm cab of his plow machine and the two headed back to the camper.

"We went back to the camper and I laid him down and took off his clothes and looked at the cut and put it all back together," he said.

"There was this big chunk of skin hanging off his leg."

When I got my coveralls off I realized the extent of my injuries," Sheck said.

"It wasn't a cut, it was more like a puncture," he explained. "There was a big chunk hanging there."

Chris has had first-aid training and he said that just took over. "I was pretty calm. I didn't really have time to think."

They wrapped the wound in a towel and started towards Rae.

When they reached Rae, they checked the wound for excessive bleeding and continued on to Yellowknife.

"A lot of people go, 'Oh my God you were lucky,'" Rick said.

"I guess I was lucky, there are two or three places I could have been and been a lot worse off now."

Sheck remains in Stanton Regional Hospital in good condition following a third operation to remove damaged tissue and is battling infection to the wound to his upper thigh.