Wednesday, November 19, 2014

How to Survive Falling Through a Hole in the Ice

It is winter. You are panting with fatigue because for the past 30 minutes you have been running and walking through knee deep snow attempting to evade a group of marauders.  You come to the edge of a clearing. Normally you would skirt around the edges, but that would take time. You decide to risk a straight path across. A hundred feet from the edge of the woods, you hear a large "crack". As you plunge through the ice, you realize it was not a clearing, but a frozen lake. What do you do?

The Art of Manliness has an infographic on surviving a fall through the ice, and some additional advice at the link. Check it out.

1. Do not breathe in the water. Your body’s shock response will cause you to gasp and hyperventilate. Resist this force. The shock will wear off in 1-3 minutes and you have 15-45 minutes to get out before you lose consciousness, so try to stay calm.  2. Orient yourself and get back to where you fell through – this ice held you before, so it should be sturdy enough to crawl back onto.  3. Don’t try to pull yourself straight up. Get horizontal, and in a coordinated motion, kick your feet while using your elbows for traction to get up out of the water and onto the ice. Pull and kick until you’re out.  4. Lie flat on ice and ROLL away. This helps prevent further cracking in the ice. Find warm, dry shelter immediately.  5. If you can’t get out, stop trashing to conserve heat and avoid exhaustion. Put arms on ice and don’t move them – they may freeze to the ice, keeping you from slipping into the water when you lose consciousness and giving rescuers more time to get to you. Get as much of your body onto ice as you can – water draws heat away from the body 25x faster than air. Your beard can also freeze on the ice and save you.  6. If your friend falls through, call 911 and then coach them through this process rather than going out to them the hazardous ice. Two victims are worse than one. If they can’t get out on their own, extend a looped rope they can put around their arms, or a tree branch or ladder to hold onto.

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