GPS helps crews rescue men from Wis. lake

Technology comes to the rescue of four men ice fishing in southern Wisconsin.

Their vehicles fell through the ice, and wound up at the bottom of Lake Koshkonong near Fort Atkinson.

Saturday night at 9:30, four friends were ice fishing on Lake Koshkonong when they decided to head home. They jumped in their trucks, which were parked on the lake. But it was dark and a heavy fog had set in.

"We figured we would stay along side the shoreline and maybe we would run into the boat launch. We didn't run into the boat launch. We ran into open water."

Their vehicles sank to the bottom. They called 911, but didn't know where they were. They told dispatchers they broke through near the mouth of the Rock River.

They were two miles off. Emergency crew ended up using GPS signals from their 911 call to locate them.

Once emergency crews realized where the four men were, the came to his area, opened up this fence and rushed through those woods to get to the lake.

The men were fortunate. The water was only about four feet deep. They stood on their vehicles until help arrived.

"With getting into cold water, you got 10 minutes, 15 minutes with hypothermia setting in. And then trying to walk to safety. We might not have ever found them," said Mike Reel of the Fort Atkinson Fire Department.

One of the vehicles is at a repair shop and may be totaled. The other vehicle is fine and was driven home on Sunday afternoon.