Very sad story.
I like to take an icy plunge at least once a year just to be sure my heart still works. So far, so good... but I reserve my foolishness to the shallow end of the pond.
I couldn't agree more with the comment above "When opening thick ice with an electric unit keep in mind that prior to ice opening the water and air bubbles can and will "trail off" many hundreds of feet in an unpredictable direction(s)" < This year in particular my ice opened up in random areas because the water level had dropped slightly creating a gap between the surface water and the ice... so the bubbles found their easiest route out and it happened to be 100+ feet from the air stones.
