posted a heartfelt message<\/a> to his business’ Facebook page Sunday afternoon, sharing the passing of his employee, 52-year-old Ben Eickholt. He says he remembers Eickholt as an friendly, genuine outdoorsman.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s just left a big empty hole in my heart really,” Kempf said. “I just can\u2019t believe this is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
A report from the Catawba Island Township Police Department says an officer attempted to reach the scene by snowmobile but was unable to locate Eickholt on the ice.<\/p>\n
Ottawa County Sheriff Steve Levorchick says while medical emergencies are not common calls on the ice, locating someone during an emergency can be difficult.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Ottawa County, we have 255 square miles of land, but we have 320 square miles of water,\u201d Levorchick said. \u201cThe vast area makes it difficult to locate anyone, plus you don\u2019t have crossroads or landmarks. It\u2019s just open ice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dispatch audio indicates that a GPS ping from the 911 call may have been critical in helping responders narrow down Eickholt\u2019s location.<\/p>\n
Kempf says he\u2019s grateful to everyone who stepped in to help and hopes the tragedy serves as a reminder for others heading out onto the ice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s pretty imperative that people learn CPR,\u201d Kempf said. \u201cIt can be a lifesaver in a lot of instances. It\u2019s a very useful tool in your back pocket in so many circumstances where you could help somebody else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ottawa County Sheriff\u2019s Office says a 911 call was made just before 9:30 a.m. for a fisherman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":103529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":{"0":"post-103528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-erie","9":"tag-erie-headlines","10":"tag-erie-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/103529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}