Watch above: Imagine being inside a car while it sinks through the ice into frigid water. As Amber Rockliffe reports, that’s what happened to a woman on Friday, Jan. 16, 2105 at a Saskatchewan ferry crossing.
WARMAN, Sask. – Fire officials made a daring rescue after a vehicle went through the ice on the South Saskatchewan River Friday evening at the Clarkboro ferry crossing between Warman and Aberdeen.
“It was about 6:30 last night that Warman Fire Rescue received a dispatch call notifying us that there was a single vehicle at the Clarkboro ferry that had broken through the ice, with a lone occupant on the hood of her car,” explained Kelvin Ooms, a volunteer firefighter.
Fire department officials say the woman tried to make a 911 call from inside the vehicle but had no phone reception, so she stood on the window sill of her car and held her phone up to complete the call. She then made her way onto the roof of the vehicle.
Ooms and fellow volunteer firefighter Lee Olfert were asked to put on dry suits and go out on the ice to attempt a rescue.
“RCMP had a infrared camera that we were able to use so that we could have a better visual of what was taking place, because she had crossed from the west side to the east so she was about three quarters of the way over the river,” explained Ooms.
READ MORE: Missing Saskatchewan man found dead underneath ice
The men made it to about 20 metres away from the sinking vehicle and said they knew they had to act fast.
“As her car started to sink further into the river, we were instructing her to jump from her car to the ice, and she did that successfully,” explained Olfert.
“When she jumped onto the ice, her car was gone within five seconds into the river.”
The firefighters said the woman’s ability to respond quickly to instructions likely saved her life.
“We asked her just to lay flat and spread her body weight over a bigger area,” said Olfert.
The two men slowly slid along the ice, navigating around open water and rescued the woman.
The fire department said they hope this incident will deter other people from driving over the crossing.
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