LINCOLNVILLE — Maine game wardens recovered the body of a 20-year-old man from Megunticook Lake, off of Fernald’s Neck, in Lincolnville Tuesday morning. Trueman Moore, 20, of Camden, drowned in the lake Monday night, March 7, after falling through thin ice.

At 7:43 p.m., Lincolnville firefighters and North East Mobile Health Services EMTs were called to Fernald’s Neck on the report of a person in the water. The Maine Warden Service and Waldo County Sheriff’s deputies were also called to the area.

Pinpointing Moore’s location, and finding the group of friends he was with on the Fernald’s Neck Preserve trails, was not an easy task after dark. Voices could be heard throughout the area, hollering for help and each other, but those voices also bounced through the woods, around the inlets and across the small islands that dot the area off Fernald’s Neck. The search was also encumbered by low lying fog over the lake.

Moore’s friends told searchers they knew he was on the ice, and had broken through, but they said they never had visual contact and could only hear him yelling. They also were yelling back to him, trying to get him to hold on until help could get there.

One friend said that Moore ended up on the ice because he was drawn to a light in a house in the distance, possibly thinking it was a way out of the trail. But he said they showed Moore there was ice between them and the light, and warned him not to cross it because it was unsafe.

Firefighters and game wardens urgently searched around the shoreline and eventually located footprints on the ice that led to a hole, where it appeared Moore likely went through. But from the shore of Fernald’s Neck, where Moore first went onto the ice, he was too far for anyone to reach him. His footprints also seemed to make a zig-zagging pattern, making it unclear exactly where he might have ended up.

As searchers made their way around the lake, it was determined that Moore had likely made his way across the ice, closer to Wiley Neck, before breaking through the ice in a depth of about 24 feet of water.

About 30 minutes after Moore’s friends said he went through the ice, verbal contact with Moore was lost. And when firefighters made their way down to the very end of Wiley Neck Road and saw the footprints on the ice that ended in open water, all they could do was stand by on shore. There was nobody there to rescue, and after wardens interviewed Moore’s friends, the incident turned into a recovery operation at around 10 p.m.

Later Tuesday night, a Maine Warden Service air boat was brought in and the likely position of the body underwater was marked with a buoy. Wardens remained on scene until around 1:30 a.m. accomplishing that task.

At best, the ice was considered to be approximately 2 inches thick in that area, and there were open spots of water along the shore, as well as at the Route 52 side of the lake. The temperature of the water was approximately 38 degrees.

Moore broke through the ice approximately 150 feet from shore, off Wiley’s Neck Road, but he was four or five times that distance from the shore of Fernald’s Neck, where he originated.

Wardens began assembling on the scene at Wiley’s Neck around 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, with a second air boat and a dive team arriving around 9 a.m. and going into the water around 9:45 a.m. Following the buoy marker to the bottom, the diver located Moore in less than five minutes and he was brought to shore by 10 a.m.

Reach Editorial Director Holly S. Edwards at hollyedwards@penbaypilot.com and 207-706-6655.
Reach Editorial Director Lynda Clancy at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com and 207-706-6657.