A white 2008 Buick Lucerne fell through the ice on Jan 27, 2025 in about ten feet of water. Thankfully, the 41 year old who was driving the vehicle was able to climb out a window before the car went under. The only part of the vehicle that was visible after the incident was a small portion of the back. 

The driver of the vehicle was crossing over the frozen lake late at night when his front two tires broke through a pressure ridge. In the winter most lakes develop a pressure ridge; it is caused by the expansion and contraction of the ice as temperatures change. A ridge often forms and creates a raised, jagged section of ice. Sometimes called ice heaves, they often exceed a mile in length, causing a real problem for ice anglers. These ridges do not consist of strong ice, so vehicles are told to drive around them. However, at night, they can be hard to spot if you don’t know where they are.  

On February 27th, 2025, the vehicle was finally extracted from the lake. This was almost a month after it initially broke through. A crew of five people from American Towing and Recovery were able to get the sedan out in about 2 hours. They used two strong cables, a large metal frame, and a pulley system with motors to pull the vehicle out of the icy water. This Buick put up a fight; a huge chunk of ice was stuck to the bottom of the car and none of the doors would open. Operators had to wait until water could drain out of the car, while it was still half submerged. 

When a vehicle falls through the ice in the state of Minnesota, the driver of the vehicle is given thirty days to get the vehicle out and paid for with their own money. After those thirty days, you may face fines up to five times the amount it costs the sheriff’s department to get the car out. In the case of the white sedan pulled out of White Bear Lake, Corey Albertson, owner of American Towing and Recovery, estimates the cost for this extraction would have been about $8,000 after the thirty day deadline. 

The reason these fines are so high is the environmental impact that vehicles sitting in water have on the lakes. Fluids like oil and gas leaking into the lakes can be detrimental to lake ecosystem health. It can kill off large amounts of fish, impacting the food chain of the lake and many other parts of the ecosystem.