A late February drive to his ice fishing house on Minnesota’s Lake Minnetonka quickly turned into a life and death struggle for Ryan Neslund, a 35-year-ol para, after he hit a weakened spot of ice with his truck. The commercial property manager knew instantly he was in big trouble. “The truck dove straight down like a submarine almost as soon as I hit the ice,” says Neslund about the Feb. 25 event.

As Neslund’s truck was sinking, he quickly opened his automatic windows before they shorted out. Water rushed in, filling the cab with frigid water. He had only a minute to take a few precious breaths from an air pocket near the roof before escaping. “I swam up to the surface and then had to move a bunch of big chunks of ice out of my way,” he says.

The next challenge was getting onto the frozen lake and it took Neslund all his strength to pull himself out of the water. Sitting in the middle of a dark desolate lake, clothes frozen to his body and shore a half mile away, he thought this was the end. “I figured I’d try screaming for help for a while before I froze solid,” he says.

A teenager standing out on his deck smoking eventually heard Neslund’s cries for help and called 911. It’d been 40 minutes since Neslund’s truck went in the water, but now he heard a siren in the distance. An ATV from the Hennepin County Sheriff’s department came onto the ice and sped by him in the wrong direction. Rescuers came back to Neslund after being directed from bystanders on shore.

Four deputies formed a human chain in order to rescue Neslund from danger. He was rushed to North Memorial Medical Center, where he was treated for hypothermia, frostbite and abrasions from the ice. He sustained no permanent damage in the accident.

Neslund is thankful to be alive but sadly he lost his yellow Labrador retriever, Balou, in the accident. “I’m sad about my dog,” he says. “If I could have saved him, I would have.” The accident was traumatic, but he vows to return to the ice next year.

His brush with death has given Neslund a new perspective on life. “I’d like to have a wife and baby someday,“ he says. “That’s something I never really thought a whole lot about but after this accident I realized it would be nice to have some people like that to support me.”