New York lifeguards break the ice to save the moose from the frozen lake

So what would you do if you found a 1,000-pound beast stuck in a frozen lake in the middle of a six-million-acre desert?

When rescuers arrived at Lake Abanakee in upstate New York, only the moose’s head was above the water. It had crashed about 40 minutes earlier, and was spotted by an unknown person in the deep woods of the Adirondacks.

A male moose walked about 200 meters on a lake in Indian Lake, 100 miles northwest of Albany, shedding its antlers, before falling into the freezing water on Thursday. morning, according to the New York Department of the Environment. Security.

The rescuers found that the snake could not get out of the water. An airship, a gas-powered flat-bottomed watercraft, was on its way to help.

“I don’t think there is a training manual for removing moose from the snow,” said Lt. Environmental Protection Officer Robert Higgins laughed later in an interview posted on the agency’s website.

He described the rescue as if it were all in a day’s work, as if someone would put on a quick wetsuit and wade out onto a frozen lake with a boat and a heavy saw, as the crew did.

“We know time is not on our side,” ranger Evan Nahor said in an interview. “It was, ‘Do what we can with what we have.'”

Before the airlift arrived, the rescuers walked through the ice using a spud bar, a long metal tool with a chisel on one end, to find the hardest way to the moose. .

“Numbers per minute are necessary,” Lieutenant Higgins said of the rescue.

They were not worried, they said, but they should save themselves if they fell. Their dry clothes will keep them warm and wet and their safety ropes are used to pull each other up.

Kneeling on the sleds — to spread their weight across the ice — they began using chain saws to remove parts of the ice and pushed them to open a channel to the beach.

The video shows the team attacking the ice around the moose as it treads water calmly – perhaps a little too calmly.

“We tried to push it with a couple of different things, but it didn’t seem to scare them,” said Matt Savarie, a ranger. “So, in the end, we pushed the jet boats that we had next to it. And for whatever reason, they were afraid. So when we got behind it, we were able to lead it. “

The bull, which weighs about 1,000 pounds, quickly rowed through the narrow channel and reached the beach. It had been in the water for about two hours.

“It was very tiring,” said Lieutenant Higgins. “It was shaking. It didn’t have much power left. We don’t know if we will be able to stand up or not.

It took the moose about 15 minutes to find his feet and strength. “It took several tries and it finally stood up,” said Lieutenant Higgins.

Then he shook off the snow and walked easily in another direction, into the forest.