Rescue teams save 27 fishermen on Lake Simcoe

Twenty-seven people were rescued Friday while ice-fishing on Ontario’s Lake Simcoe, police said.

Ontario Provincial Police spokesman Sgt. Peter Leon said police received a call Friday morning from a fisherman who reported being on a two-kilometre long, breakaway piece of ice.

The rescue concluded just before 2 p.m. “Everyone will be home tonight with their families,” he told Postmedia News.

“Our message has been pretty consistent throughout the course of the winter: that the ice has been not traditionally as strong as in years gone by and this is the reason why we’re asking people to stay off the ice,” Leon said. Ice-fishing season on Lake Simcoe officially ends March 15, but police have issued a warning to fishermen not to go on the lake.

An extensive rescue team included Barrie, Ont., police and the OroMedonte Township fire department, which has an air boat capable of going on the water and ice at this time of year, he said.

An OPP helicopter from its general headquarters in Orillia, Ont., also helped in the rescue, along with air boats from Barrie Fire Services and York Regional Police, and fire departments from Barrie and Orillia.

Police are attributing the incident to the “very significant change in weather and a shift in the wind direction.”

“The ice itself is very, very weak, given the type of winter we’ve had,” Leon said. The breakaway piece of ice “began to break up very abruptly,” he explained.

Five or six people were “plucked from the water,” Leon said, with some young children. Leon said he did not have information about how many men and women were involved or how many children.

One man was treated for hypothermia and facial injuries he sustained from falling on ice.

Lake Simcoe is 80 kilometres north of Toronto.