A man who survived after his ATV broke through the ice of a northern Minnesota lake is grieving for the friend who was with him.
One day after Dylan Wheeler made it out the water alive, searchers on Tuesday recovered the body of an 18-year-old teenager from Blackwater Lake, located about 9 miles south of Longville, officials said.
Shortly before 6 p.m. Monday, 911 callers reported to the Cass County Sheriff's Office that an ATV breached the lake ice.
Emergency medical responders and sheriff's deputies found Wheeler and got him to shore, the Sheriff's Office said. He was treated at the scene for exposure and hypothermia before being taken by air ambulance to St. Cloud Hospital, according to the Sheriff's Office. Officials have not given an update on his condition.
Search efforts continued that night for the other rider and resumed Tuesday until shortly before 1 p.m., when his body was found and removed from the water, the Sheriff's Office said.
The 18-year-old's aunt identified him as Blake Herman, of Brainerd.
"Blake was a bright young man with a kind heart and an infectious smile," Teresa Herman said in an online fundraising effort on behalf of the family.
The money will go toward funeral expenses, a fund for his younger sister as well as "memorializing Blake in Brainerd" in some fashion, she said.
Herman identified the other rider as Wheeler, of Longville.
Wheeler "is missing Blake very much," she said. "He was considered a brother to him."