By Kathryn Marchocki
The New Hampshire Union Leader
LAKE MONOMONAC, N.H. — A quick-thinking Rindge native credited Yankee know-how for the successful rescue of a 60-year-old ice skater who plunged into the frigid open water of Lake Monomonac Sunday.
Peter W. Sherwin, 51, was gathering firewood outside his lakeside home about 1:15 p.m. when he heard cries for help and spotted the skater about 150 yards from shore in Coot Bay.
“He was just yelling ‘Help! Help!,” he said.
Sherwin threw dry clothing in his 14-foot utility boat and headed out across the lake. Neighbor John Strauss soon joined him. The two pushed the boat across ice and into open water until they reached the Fitchburg, Mass., man and pulled him to safety.
“He was in the water quite a while. He was just about to go,” Sherwin said.
They exchanged the skater’s wet clothes for dry ones, wrapped him in a blanket and had him do sit-ups to help his body warm up.
Sherwin, an outdoorsman who has lived on the Rindge lake all his life, said he just used common sense.
“I’m a Yankee. I know what to do,” he said.
Rindge Fire Chief Rickard Donovan said two firefighters used an ice rescue sled to bring ropes out to the boat. Firefighters then pulled both vessels back to shore by hand.
The skater was stable but “very cold” and likely was suffering from minor hypothermia when he reached shore, Donovan said. He went by ambulance to Monadnock Community Hospital in Peterborough, where he was treated and later released, police said.
Donovan would not release the skater’s name.
“I’m not sure if he went through the ice or he ran out of ice and went into open water,” the chief said.
Lake Monomonac is about a half-mile wide and two miles long and extends into Winchendon, Mass.
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