ELDORADO – On Sunday crews rescued a hunter from the Eldorado Marsh after he repeatedly fell through the ice into thigh-deep marsh water and became disoriented, authorities said.

The Fond du Lac County Sheriff’s Office said dispatchers received a 911 call from the hunter, a 38-year-old Fond du Lac man, around 5:45 p.m. He had finished hunting for the evening and was lost and cold.

Dispatchers pinpointed his location in a patch of cattails. Recent high temperatures thawed the ice there, so crews could not easily walk onto the ice to reach him.

Law enforcement drove a utility vehicle into the icy-watery mix and rescued the man within an hour, the sheriff’s office said. They brought him to a waiting ambulance, and paramedics treated him at the scene.

Eldorado Fire Department supplied the utility vehicle while Ripon Fire Department contributed a drone to the rescue effort.