NF What to do if your vehicle goes through ice

[SirCranksalot]

sigh...it's rather frustrating when people think they know more than experts.

 

Well, quite often they do! At least about some particular aspect. It's usually gained by actual 'field' experience, being 'on the ground'. Read a bit of history---the Wright Bro's, Ingstad's discovery of the Viking settlement----and you'll see what I mean.

[ecmilley]

For anyone that thinks they can get out of a submerged.. water FILLED vehicle with a life jacket on... I invite you to prove that you can, next time "Bry the dunker guy" comes back to town.

 

Bryan has a rig that puts you in an airplane cabin that slides you down a slope and it flips upside down when it hits the water (pool) to simulate flipping a float plane. Don't worry... he uses two or three scuba divers to retrieve you before you drown.

never thought about it much wayne always assumed i could pull myself out by the oh poop handles

[ch312]

Well, quite often they do! At least about some particular aspect. It's usually gained by actual 'field' experience, being 'on the ground'. Read a bit of history---the Wright Bro's, Ingstad's discovery of the Viking settlement----and you'll see what I mean.

 

how about we compare apples to apples?

 

safety warnings and regulations are usually put in place after people have learnt the hard way. the canadian coast guard wants us to wear a PFD whenever we're around water, yet they say not to if you're in an enclosed vehicle.

 

you're suggesting the canadian and US coast guards don't have any field experience (ie. training and recovering bodies)? sorry, but i'd prefer to side with them rather than what some guy on the internet says. it's common sense really...

[kemper]

I think the obvious solution to this problem is to strap 300 lifejackets to your truck, and drive it however the hell you want.

[Harrison]

I have two experiences to share about this.

 

1. Saw a jeep go through on Scugog. They drove out to the crack and stopped. It was night and next thing I knew their headlights went down, then straight again. It took about 15 secs for the jeep doors to get below ice level where they couldn't be opened. Friends of ours were closer to them and grabbed them as they came out. I would not of wanted my float suit on that is for sure. Hole in the ice was about the same size as the jeep.

 

2. Scugog, my buddies truck. Hit thin ice during a thaw and the back end dropped. He instantly gunned it and I was out of the truck in 3.6 secs with no suit on. I JUST made it.... truck leveled out, then went down grill first. He crawled out the back sliding window.

 

So for me..... no suit.

 

Just to add to both stories... it wasn't the normal ice level that stops the doors from opening, but it was the busted ice in both cases. So that being said, most likely you'll have to jump out the window and not thru an open door.

Edited January 30, 2013 by Harrison

[ch312]

I think the obvious solution to this problem is to strap 300 lifejackets to your truck, and drive it however the hell you want.

 

lol!

 

you could actually be onto something though. i'm thinking some sort of device that could be attached to your ATV or snowmobile to prevent it from sinking would be an excellent idea. move up to the truck size when you have the bugs worked out of the smaller one. inflatable PFD's easily float 250 lbs so it shouldn't be too difficult developing one to float an ATV or sled.

 

i'd gladly spend a couple hundred $$$ to make sure i don't lose my machine to a watery grave...

[BillM]

Everyone needs to buy Argo's... problem solved!

[kemper]

Everyone needs to buy Argo's... problem solved!

Some people can sink ANYTHING Bill

[chris f.]

lol!

 

you could actually be onto something though. i'm thinking some sort of device that could be attached to your ATV or snowmobile to prevent it from sinking would be an excellent idea. move up to the truck size when you have the bugs worked out of the smaller one. inflatable PFD's easily float 250 lbs so it shouldn't be too difficult developing one to float an ATV or sled.

 

i'd gladly spend a couple hundred $$$ to make sure i don't lose my machine to a watery grave...

lol... i'm in!! my quad has been torn down to the basic needs, and fitted out for ice fishing.. it weighs 230lbs less than stock. put a inflatable pfd on it combined with the tire pressure, and im walking on water baby

[jedimaster]

I think I can solve this whole thread with one little picture....

 

[mukluk]

Back in the 70's; north end of Georgina Island on Lake Simcoe. Three vehicles left the Island road heading out to the huts. First heavy car jumps a crack.....keeps going. Same for the pickup truck following; jumps the crack ...keeps going. Third one in line an suv jumps the crack; hits the fractured slab of ice on the other side of the crack and sinks to the bottom. Floating slab of ice rolls over preventing any escape or immediate rescue. Grandfather and grandson.....gone.

[John Bacon]

I've only read to the end of page one, so I'm commenting on the floater suit / trapped in the car situtation. Sunroof open. Float suit on. That is all.

 

Not so good if the vehicle goes down nose first or end upside down.

[glen]

To get to the FISH.

[Sinker]

The trick here is to keep your vehicle ON TOP of the ice.

 

I'd say 99.9% of vehicles thru the ice, are vehicles driven into pressure cracks. The other 0.01% are driven onto thin ice, where there is current or similar.

 

I learned how to drive on the ice, long before I was old enough to have a drivers license, and I've been driving on it (when its safe enough) since then. Never had a problem, and don't see any problems coming. Would I suggest driving on the ice? NOPE! Not to anyone.

 

 

 

 

S.

[Big Cliff]

Well, first of all, when you get older and can't walk out or don't have all the money it takes to buy those fancy sleds and things, sometimes you take a chance you shouldn't have taken.

 

You'll never know until it is too late that it was the wrong choice and I have never taken my car onto the ice thinking" I'll probably go through". I do tend to try to be very careful, I'm not the first to drive out to where I think the ice might not be safe but sometimes you make mistakes. The only people that never make mistakes are the ones that don't do anything.

 

Are there idiots out there that just go "what the heck, lets see what happens". Sure there are but then there are people like me and many friends my age that just want to go fishing. We see that others have gone before us and made it with no problem so we take the chance too,

 

For now, cut us some slack, try walking a mile in our shoes, then as my dear mother use to say" go piss up a rope!"

[Musky or Specks]

Well thought I'd post this. First time I went to Temagami to ice fish back in 88. They had ice roads all over just like you see on the show complete with highway size plows keeping the road to the Bear Island reserve building Ice. We saw a car with a 16 foot 4x4 pc of lumber strapped perpendicular to the car across the grill. I asked Paul our host at Temagami Lodge what that was about. He explained that that was to give you a few extra seconds to get out of your vehicle when it went through the ice and that it was common on a lot of the vehicle early in the winter