Minneapolis drowning: An agony of unknowns

We may never really know what happened to Lisa Gustincic. She took a friend's dog for a walk near the river and somehow ended up under the ice.

By PAUL WALSH and NORMAN DRAPER, Star Tribune staff writers

Last update: December 10, 2008 - 10:11 PM

What began as a good turn for a friend turned into tragedy Tuesday. ¶ As on most other days recently, Lisa Gustincic went to a friend's place in north Minneapolis to walk her friend's dog, a black Labrador retriever puppy named Bruiser.

As the two walked on that cold, gray day, Bruiser might have gotten loose and run out onto the partly frozen Mississippi River, authorities speculate. Or Gustincic might have let him run free, only to watch in alarm as he got stuck on an ice floe.

Whatever the circumstances, Gustincic ended up on the ice herself -- and then, suddenly and terribly, beneath it. Her wet cell phone and gloves were found on the ice near the opening where she went under.

Gustincic, 39, who lived in the 4800 block of Xerxes Avenue S. in Minneapolis, drowned. Her body was found under the ice in 8 feet of water about 125 feet from shore near the Camden Bridge.

She was three days short of her 40th birthday, which her sister, Amy Gustincic, of San Francisco, said she had planned to celebrate with friends.

Friends were very important to Lisa, Amy said Wednesday. Her daily walk was a labor of love because she was so fond of Bruiser, she said.

Her sister loved to garden and had nurtured a beautiful garden at her home, Amy said.

Authorities would not release the name of the dog's owner. Neither would Gustincic's mother, Myra, who lives in Surprise, Ariz.

Myra Gustincic said the dog's owner, who lives near the spot where the drowning happened, "is just torn up about it." She said the two were good friends, and that Lisa, an unemployed manufacturing engineer, walked the dog every day.

According to the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office, Bruiser got home unharmed on his own, eluding authorities, who had been alerted that a dog was loose on the river.

That call was what alerted them that someone might be under the ice.

"It made its way on the ice for some time and hovered around the open water," said Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Lisa Kiava. "When the dog ran home, the lady called the Sheriff's Office."

Kiava said deputies had to shoo away several groups of bystanders who wanted to help them look for the dog.

"It's unbelievable how many people want to know about the dog," she said. "It's safe at home with its owner, and that's all people need to know."

Although no one witnessed what happened on the river, Kiava said the case bears a resemblance to two others recently in Hennepin County in which people tried to follow dogs onto the ice. Luckily, in those cases, the people survived.

A dark, grim search

Jeff Storms, inspector over the enforcement services bureau of the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office, said 10 divers from the sheriff's Water Patrol were involved in the efforts to recover Gustincic's body. The water's murkiness and the amount of debris in the river made the recovery difficult, he said.

"Visibility was one to two feet," Storms said. Another problem, he said, was the tendency of parts of the diving equipment to freeze.

However, Storms, who was on the scene, said the search and recovery was no more difficult than many others with which he has been involved.

In such frigid weather, divers wear thermal underwear under their wetsuits, he said. "When they're underwater, they're actually warmer than the people standing on the surface," he said. "The divers are much more comfortable, temperature-wise."

Each diver spends no more than 20 minutes in the water at one time, he said.

The Sheriff's Office would not allow journalists to interview divers who were at the scene. Granting such interviews, officials said, would be insensitive to victims' families.

Gustincic's body was recovered about 8 p.m., six hours after the report of a dog loose on the ice came in.

On Wednesday, Amy said her grief for her sister included the hope that the end came swiftly and painlessly.

"I just hope that it was fast," she said.

pwalsh@startribune.com • 612-673-4482 ndraper@startribune.com • 612-673-4547

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