They Recall Dance Of Death On A Frozen Mountain Lake -- Rescuers Were `Trying Their Best,' But Nothing Worked

CONVICT LAKE, Calif. - The screams first were heard about noon Monday - out on Convict Lake.

And soon the word spread. Twelve teen-age boys from nearby Camp O'Neal, a residential facility for troubled youths, with two of their counselors, were on a holiday outing. Hiking across thin ice, at least four teens and both adults had fallen into the water.

With the ice cracking beneath them, frantic rescuers crawled toward two openings in the frigid water of Convict Lake where drowning teen-agers and their counselors grasped desperately for life.

Three of the teen-agers and their counselors could not be saved. And swiftly, the efforts to rescue them became a treacherous struggle by rescuers to save each other.

Clay Cutter of the U.S. Forest Service was one of the first to arrive at the scene. He made his way on hands and knees toward the center of the lake. One unidentified teen had pulled himself out, but the other three youngsters were no longer in sight.

Cutter was able to reach the two counselors, their heads bobbing, their arms thrashing. Perched precariously at the edge of the ice, he managed to put a rope around each man while talking to them continuously to keep them calm.

Meanwhile, summoned by their beepers, members of the Long Valley volunteer fire department hurried to the lake.

Chief Cris Baitx and Capt. Ray Turner grabbed an aluminum boat and pushed it out over the ice. Suddenly, the ice broke under Turner, and he fell into the water. Baitx pulled Turner back into the boat.

Crouched on a ladder to distribute his weight, Baitx pushed himself slowly over the ice toward the victims. He reached one of the counselors, known to the rescuers as Grandpa, and started to hoist the man to safety. Suddenly, the ice collapsed underneath them, and Baitx fell into the water alongside Grandpa. Baitx, recalling the accident yesterday from his home in Mammoth Lakes, said that he found himself trapped under ice.

``I had to beat the ice out with my hands,'' Baitx said yesterday. ``I was sure I was gone. I was thinking of my wife and kids and are they going to be OK, because I'm history.''

At about this moment, volunteer firefighter Vidar Anderson reached the lake and, using two ladders for better weight distribution, shimmied toward where Baitx had fallen. Anderson grabbed Baitx - but the ice cracked again, and both men plunged into the water.

``At that point, I went down again,'' Baitx recalled. ``I head-butted the ice and busted through.''

Baitx would go down a third time before being rescued; Anderson, 58, would not be seen again.

Meanwhile, Cutter was having difficulties. As he struggled to assist the counselors, he had slipped and fallen into the water.

By this time, Russ Veenker, a diver for the June Lake Search and Rescue Team, had arrived. Pulling a rubber raft behind him, he delicately walked onto the ice, past where Turner sat in the boat, tugging on a single lifeline to Baitx.

The ice literally cracked under Veenker's footsteps, Turner recalled.

Veenker first reached Baitx, now semi-conscious, purple in color. He pulled Baitx from the water, lay him across his chest to float and stabilize him, then set him in the raft.

Then, Baitx and other witnesses recalled, Veenker turned to the other men who had been struggling to stay afloat - but no one was there. It was too late for Cutter, Anderson and the two counselors. They had lost the battle to keep their heads above water.

Divers yesterday recovered Cutter's body. The others are still missing. A diving team from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department planned to aid the search today.

The recovery could be hampered because the extreme cold may force the bodies to the bottom of the lake, which is 140 feet deep at its deepest point, according to Mono County Sheriff-Coroner Martin Strelneck.

In the first minutes after the men and boys fell into the water, the other youngsters from Camp O'Neal continued to run out onto the ice in a panicked attempt to reach their friends.

Only after rescuers warned them of the dangers could the boys be restrained. They paced the shore, watching helplessly.

All involved - the children, other counselors and many of the surviving rescuers - found themselves grappling yesterday with feelings of anger, of guilt for having lived when close friends died, of grief.

``It was a bad scene and just kept getting worse,'' Baitx said. ``Everybody was trying their best - but nothing was working.''

-- Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.