An unidentified man was captured falling through ice on Mirror Lake in Lake Placid, New York last week.
An Ausable River Association livestream showed the man walking on the frozen surface and falling into the water before swimming out and back to the dock safely within 30 seconds, Adirondack Daily Enterprise reports.
The incident was discovered by the Paul Smith's College Adirondack Watershed Institute's Water Quality Director Brendan Wiltse, who noticed a hole in the ice while checking the camera to see what the ice's condition was hours after the man fell through.
Wilste went back through the footage and discovered the video of the man falling through the ice and into the cold water, which he estimates to be around 15-feet deep.
The man reportedly fell through suddenly while walking alone at sometime between 10:00 a.m. and noon on December 26, but managed to swim back to the dock after spending 34 seconds in the frigid water, Wiltse told Adirondack Daily Enterprise.
“He got out really fast and appeared to know what he was doing in terms of self-rescuing,”Wiltse said.“He did exactly what you should do. He kept his arms on the ice to keep his head above water and then he laid himself flat.”
Photo: Ausable River Association