Consider this scenario: You’re dispatched to a report of a child who’s fallen through the ice of a local lake. En route, you’re told that a second child who tried to assist has also fallen through the ice. You request additional units. The dispatcher calls back again to inform you that a civilian tried to assist and they too have fallen in. You request even more units to respond. Upon arrival, you see a child clinging to the ice, yelling that his friend has sunk to the bottom. A civilian in a canoe is attempting to break through the ice to access the child.
Ask yourself: Is your department prepared to respond to a call like this? In this article, I’ll discuss the hazards and initial actions that units can take upon arrival at an ice rescue incident.
Potential Victims
Most of the time, ice fatalities involve children. Something always draws children to frozen bodies of water. They begin by tossing a stick out on the ice, then a rock, to try to fracture the ice. If nothing happens, they think it’s “good to go.” (Hey, I did it when I was a kid.)
It usually takes 1 ½—2 inches of ice to support an adult. A 60-lb. child can venture quite a way out from shore on ¾ inches of ice.
Initial Information
Usually someone will hear the cries for help or see the victim clinging to the ice from across the lake. They call 911 and give their home address. You respond to the address, and upon arrival, you discover that the victim is on the other side of the lake or quite a distance from their house. Often the dispatcher will stay on the line to try to get a more accurate location from the caller. They may then call back and give you updates from several other reporting parties. They may also dispatch several units, which is good because the units can be sent to several different locations.
Following is just some of the information the IC will need to effectively run this incident:
- How many victims are involved?
- What’s the best access to the victim?
- Is an EMS transport unit available?
- Are trained and equipped ice rescue personnel on the initial dispatch?
- Are trained and equipped ice rescue personnel available via mutual aid?
- Are ice divers available via mutual aid?
Remember: If there’s ice on the water, there may be ice or snow on the roadways. This will slow the response and make access to the site more difficult. Cold weather also means that rescue personnel who get wet will need to get into warm, dry clothes as soon as possible.
Shore-Based Rescue
Once units are on scene and have obtained the necessary information, command can form a rescue plan. Unless you have trained and equipped ice-rescue personnel at the scene, your rescue attempts will be shore-based. What are your procedures?
- Secure the scene by preventing any additional civilians from attempting to access the ice.
- Call for additional resources as needed (consider requesting a dive team response prior to the victim becoming submerged).
- Don personal floatation devices (PFDs) for working near the shoreline.
- Attempt to reach the victim with a throw bag (usually 70—75 feet in length) or other reach tools (e.g., ladders and pike poles).
- Deploy an inflated fire hose as a floating hose boom with a toss-ring strapped to the end.
- Be prepared to move and treat a hypothermic patient(s).
- Position a transport unit for a quick exit from the scene.
Do You Need Training?
How do you know if your department needs to train for ice rescue? Perform a hazard assessment. Go through your community, look at all the bodies of water, and answer the following questions for each:
- Has this body of water frozen in the past? (If you’re in Southern California or Florida, ice rescue training may not be necessary.)
- How deep is the water?
- Is it summer or winter? For rescue operations that occur during the summer months, personnel on scene may be dressed in their duty uniforms and will be sufficiently protected from the elements. But in winter, particularly for longer operations, rescue personnel must be properly dressed for cold weather. The clothes that we wear to respond to EMS calls may not be sufficient to keep us warm during these operations. Hats, gloves and multiple layers of appropriate clothing may be needed. Consider the high and the low temperatures in your area.
- How long will a victim be able to stay warm under these types of conditions?
- Is the water accessible by vehicle or only on foot?
- How long a walk is it from where you have to park the apparatus to where you need to access the victim?
- Does moving water flow into the standing water? (This will affect how long it takes to freeze.)
- Does the public have easy access to the body of water or is it fenced in?
- Do neighboring or mutual-aid departments have ice rescue equipment and trained personnel?
If, by performing this assessment, you determine that you do have hazards in your response area, you’ll need to conduct regular training drills; at a minimum, you’ll need hazard-recognition training for all your personnel, including the directive that untrained responders must not go out on the ice. Training and equipment for shore-based operations isn’t expensive, and it’s a low-risk activity that could save a life if you’re able to deploy personnel quickly.
The most effective ice-rescue training involves educating the public of the dangers of going out on the ice, and working with local law enforcement to assist with public education and intervention when children are seen out on frozen bodies of water. In some cases, people have watched children sliding around on the ice for hours prior to someone falling through.
A Tragic End
So what happened to the kid clinging to the ice, yelling for help? The first-arriving engine company laid a roof ladder on top of the ice. I donned a PFD and tied a rope around my waist. The plan was to slide out onto the ice, grab the kid and have the engine company pull on the rope to drag the ladder, the kid and myself back to shore. The medic unit was on scene for transport, so it sounded like a plan.
I laid down on the ladder and began to slide out onto the ice when I heard a crack–and into the icy water of Lake Fenwick I went. Wow. The water was incredibly cold. Fortunately, I was wearing my wool Class A uniform pants and a wool sweater.
I removed myself from the icy water, and we came up with another fool’s plan (the first one was mine as well). We grabbed a plastic canoe and a couple of paddles and pike poles. An engine company lieutenant and I attempted to break through the ice to reach the victim. We broke both paddles in seconds. We then used pike poles to pull ourselves across the fractured ice.
At this point, my clothing was actually frozen. The pain in my fingers in frozen fire gloves was so intense that my eyes were tearing. The news helicopter was so low to the ground, I could clearly see the pilot. The blades blew ice in our faces so we couldn’t see very well.
On shore, the aerial ladder was fully extended horizontally and a firefighter attempted to toss a rope to the child, but they were too far away to get anywhere near him.
A civilian then attempted his own rescue, and managed to drag the child into his canoe and get him to firm ice. Once on shore, the medics grabbed him and transported him to the hospital. We continued to drag ourselves toward the site where the first child went under.
I looked to the shore and saw the child’s father and uncle standing together. It was then that I realized that the boys were my battalion chief’s nephews.
A new plan emerged to use an attic ladder to climb down into the water and find the kid. The water was only 8—10 feet deep; however, my gloves were completely frozen, and I realized that if I stepped into that icy water, I would die.
We returned to shore and obtained a row boat. We were equipped with oars, pike poles, a ladder anchor and rope. We attempted to drag the bottom of the lake to snag the child.
The scene on shore was one of frustrated chaos. My department set up an excellent incident management team, and additional medical resources were also on scene. Everyone waited for the county police dive team to arrive.
When the divers arrived, we were called back to shore to row the boat out with the diver’s line tender. I asked for an ambu bag (ever the optimist) and rowed us out. Less than a minute after the diver went down, he resurfaced with the lifeless body of a young boy. He had no pulse and was cyanotic. We had been on scene for 45 minutes.
Remembering the story of a young girl resuscitated after being pulled out of a car that was submerged in a Boston river for 45 minutes, I instructed the police officer to start chest compressions. I drained as much water as I could from the child and bagged him. A team was sent to assist us from shore in a canoe and another row boat.
We ultimately delivered the child to the paramedics, who transported him to a trauma center. They were unable to bring him back. The boy rescued by the canoeist survived.
My heart ached for the family of the boys, and I was incredibly frustrated with the inability to have affected a rescue. It was many years before this department trained and equipped itself for ice rescues. Today, thankfully, the department is ready and well equipped for that type of incident, as it is a known hazard in their response area.
A Hard Lesson
What could we have done differently? We should have educated ourselves about ice rescue and dive rescue procedures, but most importantly, we should have never gone out onto the ice, because we weren’t wearing the proper PPE (dry suit, float suit, coldwater rescue suit, etc.) and we had no formal training.
We were very lucky. We could have lost our own responders. Firefighters dressed in turnout gear with fire helmets out in canoes on ice is a recipe for disaster.
History Repeated
Twenty-five years later, I’m working with a different department when I respond to the same type of call, and unfortunately the outcome is similar. One teenage boy has fallen through and is submerged. The other teenage boy is clinging to the ice, screaming. Neighbors call for help. Access is difficult to find initially. We end up along the edge of the lake climbing over fences and wading through water to access a site directly in line with the victim.
Just like the earlier incident, a neighbor rescues the one survivor with a canoe and drags him to shore. Though it’s nighttime, many neighbors are out. They attempt to crowd the dock; one attempts to drag a boat into the water. They’re not happy with me as I clear them off the dock and prohibit them from attempting to enter the water. (They’ll voice their concerns at the public meeting later that week.)
We have personnel trained and equipped as Ice Rescue Technicians, but now the victim has sunk below the surface. The water is 14—20 feet deep. It’s now a dive-rescue operation. Everything was the same as the first incident, except this one occurred at night. I must confess I never thought that we’d respond to an ice rescue in the dark. Who would be out on a lake at 10 p.m. at night? Kids. Oh yeah. Kids used to be home and in bed at 10 p.m. on a school night.
I learned something that night: We must train and be prepared to deal with an ice rescue response in the dark. We need to plan for scene lighting.
In my next article, I’ll discuss ice-rescue techniques for shore-based and ice-based rescue.
Heed This Warning
If you’re a first responder and you’re not fully donned in a coldwater rescue suit or dry suit, and you have no ice-rescue training, do not go out on the ice. Once you or one of your team members enters the ice without the above-mentioned equipment and training, you’re no different than a well-meaning bystander.
If you fall through the ice and are unable to get back up onto the ice, you’ll likely develop acute hypothermia. Your body’s resources will be overwhelmed by the sudden change in the environment because you can’t produce heat as fast as you’ll be losing it.
You could become unconscious in as little as 7—15 minutes. Prior to becoming unconscious, you’ll lose the ability to grasp a rope or pole, you’ll be unable to follow simple instructions and it’s very possible that you will die.
So before you set foot on any ice-rescue scene, remember that if you take the risk of walking out onto the ice without the proper PPE and training, a dive-rescue response most likely will not arrive in time to save you. Why? Because an ice-diving operation is a slow and methodical process.
When the dive-rescue response does arrive, they’ll still need to suit up, locate you, enter the water, bring you to the surface and, if needed, try to resuscitate you. The point: Do not go out on the ice!
