A man and two 12-year-old girls were rescued Wednesday after his snowmobile fell through the ice of Long Pond on Mount Desert Island.
Eli Strauss, 43, his daughter Julia and her friend, Jolie Deal, were being treated for moderate to severe hypothermia at Mount Desert Island Hospital. Firefighters found the girls in woods and Strauss near ledges that entered the water on the southeastern shore, in Southwest Harbor, Maine Warden Service Cpl. John MacDonald said.
Their prognosis is good, MacDonald said.
“Their body temps were very low,” Warden Service Sgt. Ralph Hosford said. “They were very hypothermic.”
Rescuers found the three at least an hour after Strauss’ wife reported them overdue at 5:30 p.m. Strauss needed to be carried out on a stretcher, Hosford said.
Strauss’ wife told rescuers she had become concerned after she went looking for the three of them at Somes Pond at 4:30 p.m. and saw only an inner tube that had been dragged behind the snowmobile, Hosford said.
She also mentioned that Strauss liked to ride his snowmobile on Long Pond. With that information, Southwest Harbor police Lt. Mike Miller went to the boat launch on the southern end of Long Pond, knowing the water there was open.
Miller heard at least one of the three yelling for help, and two Tremont firefighters, whom Hosford and MacDonald did not identify, were the first to find the girls.
Game wardens plan to retrieve the snowmobile Thursday to prevent it from contaminating Long Pond, which supplies the island with drinking water, MacDonald said.
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