Brothers' rescue story profiled on cable TV

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By ROD STETZER
rod.stetzer@lee.net
Sunday, November 30, 2008 4:05 PM CST

Dave Metza knew his struggle to stay alive was about over.

After 90 minutes of trying to escape from the the icy Chippewa River north of Cornell on Feb. 27, 2005, he was still 20 feet from shore. Finally, he couldn’t push air out of lungs anymore.

“I looked out of the corner of my eye,” the town of Eagle Point man said. “It was just snow and woods. Nobody. Nothing. .. So I realized, ultimately, (I) was dead.”

But then, he heard the voice of his brother, James, who was lucky to be alive after also crashing through the river’s ice.

“That’s right when he said, ‘Hang on, Dave, here I come,” Dave Metza said.

The survival story of the Metza brothers was chronicled in The Chippewa Herald on Feb. 28, 2005, and again in November 2007 in Outside Magazine.

Now it’s about to be told on national TV.

The Bio Channel will feature the story of the brothers on its second season premiere of “I Survived” at 8 p.m. Monday. The programming is available through channel 145 on Charter Communication’s digital package and on DirecTV.

The brothers were interviewed for the program in Philadelphia and in Eagle Point.

The brothers had each bought a snowmobile in the summer of 2004. Dave, who works for Haemonetics, a blood management company working with hospitals, picked out a 4-stroke Arctic Cat while his brother bought a touring Ski-Doo.

But the winter of 2004-05 was a lousy one to use a snowmobile. There was little or no snow, and the brothers could not ride their snowmobiles.

That changed the morning of Sunday, Feb. 27, 2005.

“The whole year was barren, and all of a sudden we had that six inches of snow that morning,” Dave said.

They left about noon and rode up to Cornell, where they refueled with gasoline. They then followed the bank of the river. Then they realized the river banks were too high to continue to ride and found themselves across the river from a boat landing.

“So it looked safe,” Dave said.

He was apprehensive about crossing, but knew they needed to get off the river. So he started to cross it.

It was then, as Dave puts it, the river ice exploded.

“The ice was too thin to support me and it blew up 50 yards around me,” he said.

“I watched my snowmobile (sink) out of sight and realized I was in big trouble.”

He was in the water so deep that he couldn’t see the horizon.

“If I tried to look up to the horizon I would sink in up to my forehead.’

He couldn’t hear anything and his visor of his snowmobile helmet offered him limited vision.

He had no idea his brother was on his stomach on the ice, screaming at Dave to swim toward him.

But off in the distance, he could make out the tops of two trees, and began swimming toward that. “I couldn’t see the bank or anything. Just the tops of them.”

Dave worked to get toward shore. Eventually, his gloves came off and he smashed the river’s ice with his hands.

The ice-cold water sapped the strength in his muscles.

“I had to fight that much harder just to breathe, just to try to live.”

Eventually he couldn’t feel his arms, couldn’t move his shoulders, couldn’t move his legs.

Dave had swam competitively at Eau Claire North High School and had done triathlons, so that helped him as he struggled to live.

His brother had his own problems.

Realizing Dave was heading the opposite way of where he was, James Metza got back on his motorcycle and took off, looking for a place to cross the river.

But he didn’t make it. James also broke through the ice.

A Coast Guard veteran, James had taken classes on what to do in that situation. He shed most of his clothing, boots and helmet. Finally he was light enough where the ice could support his weight.

He got out of the river, and then ran for at least a half-mile back toward his brother. He fell into the river two more times before making it to the home of Sonny Gygi. James had them call 911, then went to his brother.

Dave had sunk to the bottom of the river for awhile.

“I became just furious. I came up and started flailing my arms because I realized it was now or never,” he said.

Eventually, his brother dove off a 12-feet cliff and onto his stomach, sliding on ice, allowing him to pull up Dave’s helmet.

When the EMTs arrived, two of them couldn’t move Dave, whose clothing was water-logged.

“They didn’t know how my brother got me out of the river.’

Today, Dave carries around the legacy of that day. He suffered bad nerve damage-in his arms and legs. “I still can’t handle cold at all.”

And he and his wife added to their family with a baby girl.

Dave Metza said the bond he has with his brother is profoundly strong.

And from that February day in the frozen water of the Chippewa River, the way Dave lives life changed, too.

“Life is finite, and every day is a blessing. You don’t really never know when your time is up,” he said.

“I cannot stand to see the sun down every day.”