See the Video at the bottom of this page.

This started out with a weekend around Branched Oak Lake, NE.  There were a few bald eagles in the area so I went out for a photography outing. 

So I set out with a drone, 2 cameras, a GoPro and a various assortment of batteries, tripods and a monopod with the intent of walking close to the shore to stay safe. Haha.

As I said in the video, I tossed the cameras I was holding on the the ice and proceeded to start kicking. With giant sized snow boots, jeans, a coat weighed down by batteries and other equipment and a drone on my back, it was really hard.  I tried several times to lift my leg onto the ice, but couldn't get it up so I realized I had to swim harder and faster.

Finally I got enough grip with  my arms on the ice to get a leg up and pull myself onto solid ice. I immediately went to my car and started pulling batteries out of my equipment.  I grabbed my water resistant Pixel XL 2 phone to go record the hole because I figured, hell, if I had just ruined several thousand dollars worth of gear, I was at least going to get a video of it.

  I was really hopeful that the camera I was recording on when I fell in would have saved its video, hoping that a few thousand YouTube views would help offset the loss, but unfortunately the file didn't get saved even partially. I went home and continued drying everything out.

The final equipment tally ended up being

• 1 $400 Nikon A900
• 2 $50 3DR Solo Drone Batteries

So, fortunately, it didn't end up being as bad as I feared in the video.  See all the action below.