I was one of a group of 4 out cross-country skiing when one of the guys fell through a dodgy patch of sea ice. It was obviously unsafe for anyone else to go and pull him out because he'd clearly demonstrated that the ice wouldn't support one person, let alone two. So he tried to self rescue, but he had to get his skis off first and put them on the ice. Once he'd done that, he still couldn't get out of the water because the edge of the ice would just break away whenever he tried to pull himself up, and he couldn't get a grip on the more solid bits that were within reach because it was too slippery. He also found it was very difficult to swim his way out with ski boots on. He was rapidly losing energy in the sub-zero water and after only a minute or so was in real trouble, so the rest of us had to mount a rescue.
With the ice so weak, the rescuer had to slither out on his belly over skis that were laid crosswise (like railway sleepers) to spread the load. The last couple of skis being the victim's own at the edge of the hole. The rescuer grabbed the victim under the armpits and lifted him while the other two of us pulled on the rescuer's feet to drag them both back across the ice. By the time we got him out he was looking very pale and was shivering so much he could barely speak.
The air temperature was about -10 C so we had to get his wet gear off him before it froze solid, then somehow get him warm. It was the middle of nowhere in Antarctica. No trees or anything with which to light a fire, so the only option was to use body heat. One of the rescuers stripped off as well, and we wrapped the two of them together in all the warm dry clothing we had between us (we were on a day trip so didn't have sleeping bags - lesson to be learned there). After about half an hour he'd begun to recover enough that we could get him in dry clothes, on his feet and skiing again to produce his own body heat. It was a narrow escape. We could easily have lost him.
Later when we were having a de-brief back at the base. There was a Danish scientist there who had done a lot of travelling on ice in the arctic. He said that whenever he had to move around on frozen river, lake or sea ice, he always carried two screwdrivers sharpened to a point in the top pocket of his jacket. They had holes drilled through the handles to tie a lanyard through, that was looped around his neck. That way he could easily locate and grab them if he fell through the ice. The idea was that he'd use one in each hand as an ice pick to drag himself out of the hole hand over hand.
All that happened about 30 years ago. You can now buy hand held safety spikes for exactly that purpose. If you like to skate on frozen lakes, always carry a pair around your neck.
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