Saved two unsupervised small kids from a almost certain, very cold and tragic death.
TLDR: 6yo boy led his 4yo little sister onto hysterically thin ice because of a canal float marker that looked like a ball.
I had several mini heart attacks and yelled like crazy to get them out of there. Very likely saved those two children.
Yelled at their parents for letting their kids go unsupervised onto such thin ice.
So this was a few years ago.
It was winter in the northmost parts of Sweden.
I was with a couple of friends at a frozen lake nearby a suburban area with houses, getting ready to start a fire and such. And this lake has a canal that runs into at moderate to fast current speeds.
For you who doesn't know, if fast moving water from a river or canal enters into a frozen lake. The fast moving water will prevent any ice from building where the currents are too strong.
This means that at the edge between no ice at all, and where the Ice begins, the Ice is extremely thin, razor thin. And the Ice will gradually get thicker the further from the river/canal outlet you go.
Eventually, the currents go underneath the gradually thicker ice sheet further down onto the lake.
*Keep this in mind as i continue.*
While i had my back towards the lake and wwre prepping to start a fire. I hought i heard something far away from the direction of the lake, childrens voices.
I turned around and saw two kids on the lake, which in itself isn't a huge issue. But they were very young and completely unsupervised.
A maybe 6yo boy had led his little sister who was around 4yo onto the Ice. AND THEY WERE STANDING ONLY A FOOT AWAY FROM THE ICELESS CANAL WATERS.
The Ice where they stood was almost black because of how thin it was, i still cannot understand how the hell they didn't go through the Ice. That ice shouldn't have been able to support even their small weight as they were both standing so close to each other.
They were drawn onto the Ice because there was a orange ball shaped float that marks the canal entry point frozen into the thinnest parts of the Ice, close to the open currents.
Only a second after i saw them, i screamed ontop of my lungs while sprinting with everything i had through 3ft of snow at the kids to immediately go back the way they came. Else they would fall through the Ice.
I remember the panic i felt, because i was over 300ft away. And i remember feeling so powerless to do anything as i saw them look up at me while standing on probably only a few millimeters of ice.
But i sprinted while keeping yelling for them to go back to land. Both to direct them away from the waters edge, away from the thin ice and into thicker ice. And to make people around me aware of what's happening.
Most of you probably know, but for you who doesn't know.
Going through ice and fall into below 0°C waters is very bad to begin with. Shock, hypothermia within seconds, clothes getting soaked and dragging you down.
But this time we're talking about moving water currents that would've pulled these small children under the Ice if they fell through.
If that were to happen, i would've been completely powerless to save them.
I was too far away to do anything them if they went through.
But they didn't go through and according to me, they avoided certain death that day.
And before anyone asks, yes, i gave their parents an earful so harsh that i hope they never ever forget them. It was so close to disaster that while writing this, i feel my heart pound.
