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Man’s Car Falls Through Ice, He Admits Driving There Was “Probably a Bad Idea”

Authorities in Shakopee, Minnesota are sounding the alarm on the dangers of driving on a frozen lake, by offering as example the close-escape of one driver last week.
Minnesota man drives his Jeep through a frozen lake, admits it was "probably a bad idea" 61 photos
Photo: fox9.com
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His Jeep went right through the ice but the fall wasn’t swift, which offered him plenty of time to get out his car and rush to safety. In his turn, Chet Johnson, who says he’s driven on the frozen O’Dowd Lake since he can remember, admits that the whole thing was “probably a bad idea.” You don’t say.

Johnson tells Fox9 that he was on his way to have dinner with his step mother and the lake was the quickest way to get there by car. Since temperatures have been so low, he didn’t think there would be any danger to driving on the frozen lake, but that proved to be wrong.

His Jeep fell through and he found himself in a situation in which he had to act fast. “The water started to pour in from the back and I could feel it start to come my way, and I was still dry and I knew how cold it was,” he tells the media outlet.

“I climbed out - Dukes of Hazard kind of thing - I couldn’t open the door because the water was one inch, right up to the base of my window. So, you’re not going to open the door there, you’re just going to climb out,” Johnson adds.

He climbed out of the window and onto the roof of the car, from where he could jump to safety. Authorities recovered his car later that day, but he doesn’t say how significant the damage to it is.

However, Johnson adds, this has been a lesson learned. “I was way off the beaten path and the whole thing was probably a bad idea,” he says sheepishly. So, next time, he will be more cautious when driving on the frozen lake.

That’s missing the point, authorities say. Whoever drives on a frozen lake at any time or for whatever reason is taking a huge risk. The solution to all problems would be to not drive there at all, not to be more cautious, whatever that means in Johnson’s book.



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About the author: Elena Gorgan
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Elena has been writing for a living since 2006 and, as a journalist, she has put her double major in English and Spanish to good use. She covers automotive and mobility topics like cars and bicycles, and she always knows the shows worth watching on Netflix and friends.
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