Fast-acting Shelby Junior High School teens save ice fisherman's life

Be prepared and think fast.

Those are lessons being shared by two Shelby Junior High School teens who were among a group of quick-thinking youths credited with saving an ice fisherman’s life.

Kenny Hasenauer and Alex Chorazyczewski were snowmobiling and sledding with friends on Anchor Bay when a call went out that an ice fisherman was disoriented in his shanty and freezing.

The two eighth graders and their friends acted fast to aid the man, possibly saving his life.

“The media stories and the attention have been nice, but the only thing that really matters is that we have saved someone’s life,” Hasenauer said.

The two said a group was pulling each other on sleds by snowmobile on February 2 when Eric Kaiser’s girlfriend alerted them that the ice fisherman was trapped in his shanty.

The teens raced to the shanty, where they found Kaiser sitting in a corner suffering from hypothermia, a heart attack, carbon monoxide poisoning and third degree burns.

The fisherman had become disoriented by fumes and had fallen into his fishing hole, pulling himself out but accidentally rolling onto his grill in the process.

Using lessons learned as scouts, the group pulled Kaiser out, covered him, got him onto the snowmobile and brought him to a nearby home to call for emergency help.

Today, they are called heroes.

“I think the important thing is to act quickly,” Chorazyczewski said. “Always be prepared and follow your instincts.”

The students were later able to visit Kaiser in the hospital. “He cried,” Hasenauer said.