This story was originally published by Wisconsin Watch, and was produced in partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Investigative Journalism class taught in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
When Alec Hembree fell through the ice on Lake Wingra at the start of 2025, he remembered, “it was instantaneous.”
It was just after dark on Jan. 20. The temperature was around 2 degrees. Hembree was riding his bike across the frozen lake from his work on Madison’s east side to his home on the west side, a commute he had tried successfully for the first time the previous week. When he fell in, his feet couldn’t touch the bottom. He barely had time to be scared…