Wis. Father, Daughter Die in Icy Pond

By DINESH RAMDE

CEDAR GROVE, Wis. – An ice-skating trip at a small pond ended tragically Friday when a young girl fell through the ice and her father plunged in trying to save her.

A few miles away, a boy on an all-terrain vehicle broke through another frozen pond. Unlike the others, the boy was pulled out still alive and rushed to a hospital in critical condition, authorities said.

The bodies of the father and daughter, Brian Obbink, 44, and Megan, 9, were recovered later Friday by a law enforcement dive team, Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Sgt. Doug Tuttle said.

Megan had been skating on the football-field size pond in Cedar Grove with her 6-year-old sister Friday morning when the ice broke and Megan fell through. When their father tried to save her, he also fell in, Tuttle said. The younger sister ran to a nearby home for help, and someone called 911, but it was too late.

Rescuers chopped through the ice to search the pond by boat Friday afternoon, Tuttle said. Snow was falling in the area and the temperature was 22 degrees.

The ice on the pond, about 40 miles north of Milwaukee, was less than 3 inches thick.

Neighbor Bill Schreiber said he said he saw two people running to the pond, one of them in shorts. “I’ve never seen people on the pond, only guys training their hunting dogs out there,” he said.

About 10 miles northwest of Cedar Grove, in the Town of Lyndon, rescuers pulled a 12-year-old boy from a small pond after he drove a four-wheeler into the pond, according to Cascade Police Chief Cory Roeseler.

The boy had been hunting with an adult neighbor and drove out of the woods ahead of him. The neighbor spot the four-wheeler in the pond, about 25 feet from shore and called for help.

The boy, whose name was not released, was taken to Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin in suburban Milwaukee.

Sheriff’s Deputy Jim Opgenorth said the deaths were a reminder that people need to careful around ice.

“There is no such thing as safe ice,” he said.