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More than a dozen people collapse into icy lake

Important notice to all tourists without snow / ice experience:

Never walk onto an icy lake without speaking before to a local if warnings from walking on icy lakes are existing - especially not at days with repeating day temperatures around 10° C.

Another indicator for not going onto the ice is that nobody else is on the ice - and even if other people are on it, it does not mean that the ice carries people everywhere.

Background article: https://www.bluewin.ch/en/news/more-than-a-dozen-people-collapse-in-icy-lake-2592957.html

Short video with German subtitles (maybe geo-fenced): https://www.n-tv.de/mediathek/videos/panorama/Webcam-haelt-dramatische-Rettung-auf-Eibsee-fest-article25613561.html

Rescue people sometimes need to risk own health or life to save others. This is not necessary if everybody takes care of its own safety!

Although it happened in Germany I post it in General Europe because around Alps and in the mid and northern parts of Europe the danger is the same.

Posted by
4474 posts

I just don’t understand what would process people to walk on any lake, especially that LOOKS frozen.
As we all know, looks can be deceiving. Unless you are an expert on ice depth and safety, stay off the ice.

Posted by
22100 posts

We have a lot of ice experience here in Wisconsin, and people still fall through the ice, often either over-eager ice fishermen or snowmobilers.

Posted by
304 posts

Michigan here. Lots of ice fishing. Just had a 4 wheel ORV go through the ice. I wonder if there are ice fisherman on German lakes?

Posted by
3742 posts

I wonder if there are ice fisherman on German lakes?

Mecklenburg here. I live with lake view and some lakes around. I was not seeing this so far which does not mean that it does not exist in Germany. Afaik some people in the Nordics practice it, e. g. in Sweden.

Posted by
291 posts

We used to live in the Northeast along a coastal river that would freeze solid some winters. There was an ice boat club in town that would travel wherever they had to go each weekend to run the boats. The rule of thumb was not to go out on the ice until you saw the ice boat club out there - natural selection ensured that they knew how to evaluate the ice for safety! The town did keep an EMS crew parked alongside the river, though, just in case.