Wixom's fire chief and one of his lieutenants scrambled to action to rescue a man who crashed his pick-up truck into an icy retention pond.
"Had he not been able to extricate himself from the vehicle it would have been a much different story," said Lt. Jason Breitmeyer of the Wixon Fire Department.
Police say the driver of the pick-up truck, a 60-year old man from Novi, was going too fast for the conditions or was somehow distracted when he failed to negotiate a sharp turn in an industrial park in the city. His vehicle wound up almost completely submerged.
"He was soaking wet," Breitmeyer said. The man was suffering from hypothermia after being in the icy water.
While fire chief Jeff Roberts donned protective gear to go into the water, Breitmeyer laid out a ladder that reached to the man's truck.
"He was so cold at that point that he had to be helped to the ladder, he was so cold and so weak," Breitmeyer said.
"We were able to get him across and into a waiting ambulance. We started warming his body temp back up to normal and got him to the hospital for further evaluation.
Wixom Police Lieutenant Ron Moore told Action News the Novi man avoided serious injury and is doing well.
