Young hunter dies rescuing his dog when it fell through ice on frozen pond

A young hunter died rescuing his dog when it fell through ice into a frozen pond, according to officials.

The body of Luke Kitterman, 23, was recovered on Tuesday after an extensive search of the iced-over waterhole in Clinton County, Ill., where he vanished the day before, authorities confirmed.

Kitterman had been on a goose hunting trip with five friends when his dog fell through the ice while running out to fetch a downed bird, officials told KSDK.

He belly-crawled onto the ice and was able to pull out his dog — just to fall in himself, along with the hunting hound, witnesses said.

Kitterman died while on a goose-hunting trip with his friends. Facebook/Luke Kitterman

His desperate friends rushed in to attempt to save him, but the young hunter never resurfaces.

“They were able to pull the dog out of the water and into a canoe, just unfortunately lost sight of their friend,” Peyton Matthews with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources Conservation Police told KSDK.

Luke Kitterman, 23, died while trying to save his dog on a frozen pond. FOX 2

Some 75 first responders from multiple agencies, including divers, started the search around 3 p.m. Monday — but had to make it a recovery rather than a rescue mission after hours toiling in extreme cold.

“As the night went on and the sun went down, the temperatures only got colder,” Matthews said. “The ice is about three inches thick… once we started to drop in temperature, the ice began to freeze over where we had created a hole for the divers to go in.”

The recovery attempts resumed Tuesday morning, with about 30 first responders using divers and a 360-degree scanning sonar to survey the pond, which is about 4 acres in area and between 18 and 34 feet deep.

Several of Kitterman’s friends remained at the scene on Tuesday, where the doomed hunter’s body was finally recovered around 6 p.m., according to Fox 2.