MUSKEGO - A TV live truck was finally freed from the ice Tuesday after days of being submerged in Big Muskego Lake.

Channel 58 (WDJT) was doing a story Sunday on the dangers of thin ice when they fell victim to the problem themselves.

Watch video of the truck being extricated from the ice

The driver was able to escape unharmed.

Recovery crews spent the last two days chipping away at ice and trying to get the 9,000-pound truck unstuck from mud.

On Tuesday afternoon, they used a winch to finally drag the truck back on shore. The truck is said to be worth a quarter of a million dollars and is considered a total loss.

The mess happened Sunday afternoon while a photographer with CBS 58 was covering a story on the dangers of thin ice.

The driver thought she was on a snow-covered road, but it turned out she was driving on a channel between a boat launch and the main lake itself. The ice was only about five inches thick and the weight of the truck broke it.

A lot of onlookers flocked to the odd scene at Big Muskego Lake. Jim Konkol has been coming to the lake most of his life and was shocked to hear someone drove on the frozen canal. "They probably didn't know about it. It looks like a road, but it's not," Konkol said.

Dozens of other people watched in disbelief. "Well, it says 'boat launch' over there. This is where you always access the boat when you go on the lake," said Muskego resident Tracy Blair.

Recovery crews started working on Sunday night. But Monday morning they carved out hundreds of feet of ice to make a path to tow the truck. That's when they found another problem. "This van is in some real silt. That van is in two and a half to three feet of silt at least," said Kristopher Mageske with KEM Underground Recovery.

Channel 58 representatives said they're just glad no one was hurt.

Monday Update on the Recovery from TODAY'S TMJ4 reporter Jonathan Vigliotti

More Web-exclusive raw footage as authorities try to extricate the truck Monday morning.

Watch the Raw TMJ4 News Footage of the Truck

Additional coverage from Newsradio 620 WTMJ-AM

Read the official press release from Muskego Police