A 72-year-old has drowned after a group of skaters fell through the ice covering a reservoir north of Lake Tahoe, according to local authorities. Eight people were skating on the Stampede Reservoir in the Tahoe National Forest area on Saturday when six of them accidentally fell through the ice. Five skaters were rescued by the pair who hadn’t fallen, the Sierra County Sheriff’s Office said, but the group couldn’t locate the final man, whose body was recovered by a dive team the following day. On Monday, police identified him as William Smallfield, a septuagenarian resident of nearby Truckee. “The message here is pretty simply: stay off the ice. Period. Our weather fluctuates too much and is too inconsistent to ever deem for safe conditions on ponds or lakes,” said Adam Mayberry, Truckee Meadows’ Fire and Rescue Communications Manager, according to the Reno Gazette-Journal.
