The Curious Incident of the Snowmobile on Christmas Eve

Becky and I live in a smallish town in Minnesota. Snowmobiles are more common in the winter than bicycles are in the summer. The Crow River runs through town, and there is a small dam, near a park just north of downtown. I think the dam probably had something to do with the mills in the old days, but for now, it just slows the river down a bit and makes a nice are for shore fishermen. In the winter, it does make for a bit more challenging snowmobile ride, since the water doesn't freeze going over the dam. Maybe it does sometimes, but it certainly wasn't frozen yesterday, and its been below freezing for 9 days and below zero for much of that time.
Yesterday (Christmas Eve) after we got done working, we decided to go around and enjoy the sunshine which was the first we'd had in a few days anyway. We went down to the river to see the dam and see if there were any opportunities for pictures.

While we were there, we saw this snowmobile driving up the river, fairly quickly. Since we'd just been at the dam, and seen tracks going across (apparently jumping over it), we thought maybe this guy was going to do it for us as a show! No, that wasn't his plan; he just didn't realize that the dam was there.
It turned out that he was a 17 old kid, and this was his first time on his Dad's 2 week old (used, but new for him) snowmobile. Some other guys took the kid up to the bar to get warm (he was soaked!) and we worked with his dad, and a guy who lived near there for awhile trying to get the sled out of the river. They finally called a tow truck and winched it out. What a terrible way to start out Christmas for them...