By Don Thompson
The Associated Press
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Noel Smith had moved his wife and teenage daughter to one of California’s most far-flung regions five months ago, a landscape of rolling mountains, rivers and wide valleys near the Oregon border.
Despite its remoteness, the home was where most of his family had decided to gather for Christmas. Last weekend, Smith and two of his brothers celebrated the get-together by going duck hunting amid dormant rice fields.
The reunion quickly turned tragic when the family dog, a Chesapeake Bay retriever, punched through ice on a lightly frozen lake. In moments, two of the brothers would be dead and the third recovering from hypothermia, leaving their family grieving just days before the Christmas holiday.
“It just sucked them down, out and under the ice, kind of like being on a slide,” said Pat Oilar, chief of the McArthur Volunteer Fire Department and one of the rescuers who responded.
Three of the four Smith brothers — Noel, 39, Andrew, 34, and Nathan, 32 — were just finishing a day of hunting near McArthur, 230 miles north of Sacramento. One of them skipped a rock onto the ice of Big Lake near the boat dock.
Noel Smith’s retriever ran after it but plunged through the ice into the 40-degree water. He went to rescue the dog but fell in. His brothers then lay down on the ice, forming a human chain, to rescue Noel but broke through themselves.
By the time rescue crews arrived just after dark Saturday, Noel and Nathan had drowned, while Andrew and the dog, which had subsequently pulled itself out of the water, were shivering on shore.
The fire engine, decorated for the annual Christmas parade in McArthur, still was draped in holiday lights when it arrived at the lake.
Firefighters borrowed a boat from another duck hunter to probe through the 16-foot-deep water for the bodies. Oilar estimated the men would have had perhaps 90 seconds in the frigid lake before they lost the ability to pull themselves out.
“I know the dog meant a lot to his wife. I think he was just trying to save the dog,” said Mo Hern, spokeswoman for the coroner’s office in Shasta County. “It’s just terrible. Terrible.”
The brothers and their parents had gathered for the holidays at the home of Noel Smith, his wife, Lisa, and their 15-year-old daughter, Brooke. The family had moved from the Sierra foothill town of Grass Valley to Burney, a town of 3,000 nestled between Lassen National Park and Mount Shasta, five months ago when Noel went to work at a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. hydroelectric plant.
Nathan Smith, a former Marine, lived in the Sacramento suburb of Citrus Heights, where he worked as an electrician’s apprentice, said Jim Allen of Allen and Dahl Funeral Home in Palo Cedro. Like his brothers, he loved mountains and lakes, said Allen, after speaking with the men’s parents.
Andrew Smith was released from a local hospital after being treated for hypothermia.
The tragedy left the family struggling to find meaning in the deaths.
“The brothers had sacrificed themselves, in a sense, trying to help one another,” said Pastor Ken Frazier of the Word of Life Assembly of God Church in Burney, where Noel Smith, his wife and daughter worshipped.
He met Tuesday with family members, who released a statement citing a Biblical passage saying there is no greater love than sacrificing one’s life for a brother.
“More than anything we want the true Spirit of Christmas to be recognized,” the statement said. “Jesus came to earth as a helpless babe to give His life for others, just as these heroic brothers did.”
Family members do not wish to comment beyond that statement, Lisa Smith said Tuesday.
“The family members all just came together in prayer,” she said in a brief telephone interview. “That’s all we wanted to say.”
Drownings caused by people venturing onto thin ice are rare in Shasta County because people who live there generally know the danger, said Oilar and Hern.
They are more common in populated areas near Lake Tahoe, said Lt. Les Lovell, a 28-year veteran of the El Dorado County Sheriff’s office in South Lake Tahoe.
"(Frozen lakes) tend to become an attractive nuisance, not just for wildlife but for pets and kids who want to go out on the ice,” Lovell said. “I certainly understand why people want to rescue a pet, but it’s a dangerous situation.”