After 90 minutes in the frigid river, every second counts

With such long and snowy winters, Maine has become a popular snowmobiling state. Many Maine kids learn to drive a snowmobile before they learn to drive a car. Twenty-one year old Michael Thurston was no exception. Mike grew up on a farm near Rumford, a small town community where everybody knows everybody and people are always willing to lend a hand. One evening last January, Mike headed out for a snowmobile ride with his childhood friend, Ben. They stopped for a break when they got to the Androscoggin River, and then decided to ride the river into Rumford. Mike had ridden on the river several times over the past few days and since temperatures had remained below freezing, he felt confident it was still frozen solid.

He was a few hundred yards in front of Ben when he came around a bend in the river and saw the open water in front of him. His only thought was to skim across one edge of the spot to get to the solid ice on the other side. As soon as his machine hit the water, the track stopped. With his momentum gone, Mike had no chance of riding the sled across the water and it sank to the bottom of the river like a 300 pound rock.

As his snowmobile sank rapidly beneath him, Mike threw his helmet off and tried to swim across, but his boots were too heavy. He quickly kicked them off, but by this time the current had already pushed him to the downstream edge of the ice. In danger of being pulled under, Mike desperately grabbed for the edge and heaved his shoulders and chest onto it. Pinned against the ice by the current, he watched helplessly as Ben zipped by, unable to see Mike’s dark figure in the pitch black water. Ben knew something was wrong, however, when he could no longer see his friend’s tracks. He went back the way he came, but when he still couldn’t find Mike, he raced back to tell Mike’s mother to call for help and then spent the next 90 minutes desperately searching.

Mike’s only thought as he clung to the ice in the freezing water, was to not get sucked under and put his family through such a terrible ordeal.  He shifted left and right in an attempt to find a spot where the current was weaker so he could lift his leg up onto the ice. After a few minutes of energy-sapping effort, he began to lose hope.

“I can still remember looking up at the stars and thinking what a clear night it was,” recalls Mike. “I remember hearing sirens go by on the road, and then back by again. I remember seeing a flashlight up on the river bank and screaming as loud as I could. But mostly I remember feeling hopeless.”

After nearly 90 minutes in the frigid Androscoggin, Mike opened his eyes to find his neighbor, Dick, kneeling on the ice in front of him. “We’re going to get you out of here, Mike,” he said. With nothing more than 25 feet of rope, strength and determination, Dick and three other men who lived nearby heaved Mike out of the ice while his friend Ben led paramedics to the scene. The rescue crew brought Mike directly to the helipad at Rumford Hospital where LifeFlight was already waiting. Mike’s mother, Karen, who is an emergency nurse at Rumford Hospital, had been on the phone with emergency physician Al Riel, MD throughout the search. Dr. Riel knew if Michael survived at all he would be severely hypothermic and would need to be treated at Central Maine Medical Center. When he got on the helicopter, Michael’s core temperature was a bone chilling 31 degrees Celsius.

“I was somewhat conscious for most of the trip, but what I remember most is being cold. When I told the paramedic on the helicopter, he immediately took off his hat and put it on my head. I have never felt anything so warm in my life,” says Mike.

After only a couple of days in the hospital, Mike returned home and soon went back to work as a welder, traveling around New England to a different job site every week. Between his job and helping his family take care of the farm, he doesn’t have much free time, but when the snow starts to pile up he’ll always find time to head out for a snowmobile ride.

“It was the scariest thing that ever happened to me,” explains Mike. “But snowmobiling will always be a part of my life. I can’t imagine what I would do without it.”

CREW MEMBERS
CommSpec Jonathan "JR" Roebuck : Pilot Pat Giarizzo
Nurse Doris Laslie : Paramedic Jared Miller