Local firefighters using ice rescue tools had already recovered the apparently lifeless bodies of Savannah Kleinhans, 9, and her best friend, 7-year-old Tiffany Dombrowski, nearly 30 minutes after the truck broke through near a pressure crack in the ice. Miraculously, Tiffany would recover, but tragically Savannah did not regain life.

Loewe stood by for what turned out to be an hour and a half before divers from the Fond du Lac County Sheriff's Department reached the scene and recovered Dan Kleinhans body.

"It was terrible standing there. I knew then we needed our own dive team so we could be there in a minute. If we can save just one life it's all worth it," said Loewe, captain of the Stockbridge Fire Department's First Responders and one of 12 certified divers on the new Calumet County Dive and Rescue Team.

With the sturgeon spearing season approaching and thousands of sturgeon hunters making plans to venture out onto frozen Lake Winnebago, dive team members from seven Calumet County fire departments tested their diving skills Saturday on the thin ice of a Town of Harrison pond.

In the first real-life ice training since going active on Oct. 1, dive team members practiced not only how to search underwater for victims, but also how to avoid becoming victims themselves in the murky lake waters.

"You always have to have a backup diver, no matter what. You never know what is going to happen," Harrison Fire Department dive team member Jared Gerl told fellow team members in a meeting before they donned bright yellow diving suits and slid beneath water lapping through a triangular-shaped hole in the six-inch-thick ice.

Loewe, a Stockbridge village board member, certified diver and dive master with more than 100 dives to her credit who watched Saturday's training, led efforts to raise the $100,000 donated thus far to fund dive team training and operations.

"It costs about $10,000 to train and equip one diver," Loewe said.
Fund raising efforts received an early boost with a $20,000 donation from the Savannah's Pay It Forward Foundation (S.P.I.F.F.), an organization aimed at helping youth in various ways.

The dive team also received a sizable, but undisclosed donation from Joe Nelesen of Hickory Hills Country Club in Chilton, said dive team president Eric Burich, a lieutenant with the Brillion Fire Department.

Burich said between 60 and 70 individuals expressed an early interest in being dive team members. That has narrowed down to a core group of 25 members, including the 12 certified divers.

"When we formed we looked into how other dive teams operated. We didn't rush into anything," Burich said. "Now we are ready to go. We are ready to respond to any part of the county within minutes."

Many dive team members at Saturday's training session anticipated getting their first rescue call this weekend as anglers looked to test the Lake Winnebago ice in the face of a week of above-freezing temperatures and open water in some places.

"It's keeping us on pins and needles," Burich said.

The team has two sets of diving equipment stationed at each of three locations along the lake including the Town of Calumet Fire Department in Pipe, the Stockbridge Fire Department and the Harrison No. 2 Fire Department.

Burich noted the Calumet County team is totally volunteer and is not supported by any tax funds.

"We get no dollars from any government organization. And we are self-insured," Burich said.

Currently the dive team has six suits to spread among its 12 divers.

"We would love to get a boat and suits to outfit everyone," Burich said.

The team also has weighted buoys to mark the location of underwater objects on its wish list.

But for now the team is just glad to be ready to be poised to respond ice and water rescues virtually at a moment's notice.

"Knowing Tiffany (Dombrowski) has recovered, that's what has us pumped up," Loewe said.

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