Warm temperatures perfect for testing ice rescue

By Lethbridge Herald on February 26, 2025.

Members of the Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services Water Rescue Team take part in an ice rescue training exercise Tuesday at Legacy Park.

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – apulido@lethbridgeherald.com

With temperatures rising steadily and ice quickly melting in bodies of water across the city, members of Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services Water Rescue team took part in an ice rescue training exercise Tuesday afternoon in Legacy Park. 

Charles Schoening, Water Rescue Team Lead with LFES, spoke to reporters after the training exercise and said they always try to do this type of training around this time of the year, when ice conditions start to change. 

Schoening said during the training exercise they were training a few new guys, as well as refreshing the skills of the people who have done the course before. 

“The idea behind doing it this time of the year is in anticipation of this being the time of the year when we are the most likely to go out to do a rescue off the ice,” said Schoening. 

He said they typically do between three to five ice rescue incidents per year, which may involve people or pets, with pets being the most common incident. 

“What we did today was a three-part rescue to give three guys a chance to do the rescue,” said Schoening. “We went from the point where we are dressing someone in their personal protective equipment, to the point where we would be going out and effecting a rescue.”

He said they did this three times to test the members’ skills and to amp up the level of excitement to try and recreate a real-life incident, with the stress and excitement that goes along with it. 

“To rescue one individual, we like it to happen around the five-minute mark, from when we are getting the guy dressed to when we are getting out there to rescue someone off the ice but is going to depend highly on the condition of the ice and access to the shore and those kinds of things,” said Schoening. 

He said they usually do this type of training twice a year, where they typically train around 15 new members to be comfortable with doing the surface ice rescue. 

“In addition we provide the opportunity to people that have done the course before to come out and refresh their skills to re-familiarize themselves with the skills,” said Schoening. 

He said some big lessons he would like the public to know include the fact that no ice is safe, even though the city might say that a certain body of water is safe at the time, that does not mean every other body of water in the city will be safe. 

“There are only three designated areas in the city they check: Legacy Park, Henderson Lake and Nicholas Sheran. Those are the only ones that are checked frequently for ice depth. And those are the areas that would be deemed safe,” said Schoening. 

He added that in those three areas, there are signs that let the public know if the ice is safe or not and the city also provides that information through press releases. 

“The river is never safe to go on,” said Schoening. “The biggest message I would give to people is that the river ice is never safe to be on. It may appear to be solid ice out there, but currents can change the ice conditions very quickly, and the current at water levels can change day to day.”

He said that just because there is “solid ice” one day, it does not mean that it will be the same the next day. So, it is best to stay off it. 

“If you fall through the ice, the number one thing, that I understand is easy to say and hard to do, but please try to stay calm. If you are thrashing around in the water, you lose body heat more quickly and hypothermia can set in.”

He added that thrashing around in the water will degrade the ice even further and make it more difficult to get out. 

“Attempt to get yourself out of the ice. Get your arms up on the ice edge and let yourself freeze there if you need to, if you can’t get yourself out immediately.”

If you hold on to the edge of the ice, your arms actually can bond with the ice and if you were to get too cold and lose consciousness, this will prevent you from going into the water until emergency services arrive. 

“Along with that, is not just yourself going out there,” said Schoening. “I recommend that when you’re walking your pets down by the river to keep them on leash. People would go after their dog, it’s human instinct. I would do that too, but the best thing is to keep your dog off the ice so it doesn’t turn into a rescue.” 

If your dog goes out there and it gets into trouble, and you cannot get them to come back to shore, call 911 and do not attempt to rescue them yourself. 

Anyone who sees someone else falling through the ice should call 911 and then attempt to reach out to the person only with an object that is long enough to do so, without entering the water. 

“And do a good job of building a mental picture of where that person is, especially if you lose sight of them, pick a point on the shore that you can see that is a good reference point of where they were, and the same thing on your side so when the emergency services get there, they are able to locate the spot where the person went through quickly,” said Schoening.

Andrew Moxon, a member of LFES who is new to the water rescue team, told reporters that the training exercise was quite invigorating. 

“It’s initially a stress, something you’ve never done before and you have always been taught is quite dangerous, but they train us really well here,” said Moxon. “Had a full day of in-class work to make sure we were up to date with the latest training and then they got us in these suits and it’s a whole different world out there.”