Oops! 15-Ton Payloader Poor Choice for Ice House Trail Maintenance

"TRACTOR DRIVEN INTO RIVER BY CENTRAL PARK THIS MORNING"
KROX (December 29, 2008)


(from KROX, used without permission)

"The Crookston Fire Department was called to Crookston Central Park at 2:13 this morning to rescue the operator of a pay loader [!] which had gone through the ice on the Red Lake River. Mike Raymond, a 27 year employee by the Polk County Highway Department was removed without injury. The pay loader continued to sink through the morning as divers and equipment was called to come and remove the machine...."

"Polk County Employee On Thin Ice With Boss"
KEYC (December 29, 2008)
With video (0:38)


(from KEYC, used without permission)

"Back in Minnesota...a Polk county employee is on thin ice with his boss... after he put a 200-thousand dollar implement into the river at Crookston. Polk County engineer Rich Sanders says county employee Mike Raymond was supposed to be clearing snow out of parking lots. Instead, it appears he may have been clearing a path to his ice house when he dropped a 200-thousand dollar, county payloader through the ice of the Red Lake River...."


(from KEYC, used without permission)

What impressed me was that this was not some addled late-adolescent whose brain was still being rewired. Mr. Raymond must be at least 40.

And, although northwestern Minnesota does tend to be chilly, river ice is not the sort of thing that one generally wants to put big, heavy, moving equipment on.

The KROX report said that the payloader driver was "in a bit of trouble." Considering that it took a backhoe, another payloader, and a dive team from Fargo to drag his ride out of the river, I'd say that was an understatement. Which we get a lot of in this heavily-Scandinavian part of the country.