Sheriff says Sullivan County couple found dead submerged in pond while ice fishing
LOCH SHELDRAKE - The Sullivan County Sheriff's office said a husband and wife who had gone ice fishing were found dead submerged in a pond on Tuesday morning.
The sheriff's office identified them as Viktor Nikitin, 63, and Svetlana Nikitina, 70, both of Loch Sheldrake.
The sheriff's office said it received a call at 8:15 p.m. Monday from a woman in New York City who was concerned that she was unable to reach her parents. The sheriff's office first asked town of Fallsburg police to check their residence, but when they found no one home, an extensive search was launched.
The daughter said her parents might have gone ice fishing around 1 p.m., so police began checking numerous lakes and ponds during Monday night's intense snow storm.
At about 2:40 a.m. Tuesday, a sheriff's deputy located the couple's 2021 Nissan Murano near a pond on Hutrat Road off Route 52 between Woodbourne and Loch Sheldrake. Deputies could see ice fishing poles set up on the pond, but there was no sign of the couple.
Members of the Loch Sheldrake Fire Department responded to the scene, but thin ice prevented rescuers from venturing out onto the pond.
At day break the Sullivan County Fire Coordinator's office responded with equipment to facilitate a search, and sheriff's deputies used a drone to inspect the pond and found an area of open water near the ice fishing poles.
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State police divers responded and recovered two bodies that were submerged in about 10 feet of water, about 100 feet from the shore.
They were positively identified as Viktor and Svetlana Nikitin, and were pronounced dead at the scene by Sullivan County Coroner Elton Harris. The sheriff's office said autopsies will be performed to determine their official causes of death.
In a statement, Sullivan County Sheriff Mike Schiff thanked "the cooperative efforts of all agencies (that) brought this tragic event to a timely conclusion despite the extreme weather conditions."
"We have had a stretch of warm weather and the ice on our lakes and ponds is not that thick," Schiff's statement read. "Use extreme caution and always let someone know where you are going."
Mike Randall covers breaking news for the Times Herald-Record, Poughkeepsie Journal and The Journal News/lohud. Reach him at mrandall@th-record.com or on Twitter @mikerandall845
This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: Sheriff says husband and wife found dead in pond while ice fishing
