Wauconda man a hero on Bangs Lake

If you ask Curt Hermann, his wife and friends have been making too much of his actions Sunday morning.

“This is not that big of a deal,” the 55-year-old Wauconda resident said.

The stranger Hermann pulled out of Wauconda's Bangs Lake probably would disagree.

Thinking and acting quickly, Hermann used a long towing cable that was in his car to pull the man — whose name has not been released by authorities — from the icy lake.

The man was taken to an area hospital cold and wet, but was expected to survive, authorities said.

The excitement began about 7:30 a.m. Sunday when the unidentified man was walking on the partially frozen lake to look at birds, authorities said.

Hermann was shoveling snow from his driveway at the time, about 100 yards away, when someone ran up to him and said a man was in the water.

Hermann ran to the lake and spotted the stranger hanging onto broken ice about 150 yards from shore. He ran back home, told his wife to call 911, grabbed the cable and returned to the lake.

“I got close to the guy, and he was glad to see me,” Hermann said.

Hermann made a loop in the cable, tossed it to the stranger and waited for the man to slip the loop around his body. The maneuver was difficult, Hermann recalled, because the man believed one of his arms was broken.

Once the line was secure, Hermann pulled the man out of the water.

“He popped out of the ice,” Hermann said. “I guess I was pulling him pretty hard.”

Firefighters and paramedics arrived shortly afterward.

Hermann's wife, Susie, was “all freaked out” about the rescue, but called relatives and friends to tell them the news, he said.

In conversations with them and with reporters, Hermann — who worked as a lifeguard at a local beach when he was younger — tried to downplay his actions.

“I'm just glad I was there,” he said.

Susie Hermann was understandably proud of her husband.

“He's not the type of guy who thinks he deserves a lot of attention,” she said. “But how many people save a life?”