A woman is recovering after falling through ice at a southeast Calgary community lake Saturday morning.
The Calgary Fire Department said a worker was operating a tractor when it fell through ice at the lake in the Midnapore neighbourhood.
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Calgary fire said they were called to the scene and when crews arrived they saw people helping a worker who had fallen through the ice while operating a utility vehicle.
Calgary fire said the worker was clearing the ice on the machine when it broke through and fell into about 10 metres of water.
“It was pretty shocking to see someone just here, where I look out every day, just struggling to survive. It was kind of weird,” Jack Getzlaf said.
Jack, 21, said he and his dad, Michael Getzlaf, were in their house near the lake when they saw the ice clearing vehicle begin sinking into the lake.
“Just a freak thing,” Jack said. “(It) crashed straight through and started to sink, so my dad and I immediately went to get some help from the neighbours, and (got) an extension cord, whatever we could find.”
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The father and son ran out on the lake with the extension cord and threw it over to the woman who was in the closed cab vehicle, as it slowly began sinking.
“She managed to perch herself, very smartly, on the edge of the ice with her legs in the water. She was just obviously in shock and very cold,” Michael said.
“We were able to get the extension cord to her and she did great pulling herself and moving her legs to get herself out.”
Emergency Medical Services said the worker is a woman in her 20s and she was taken to Rockyview General Hospital in stable, non-life threatening condition with no concerns of hypothermia.
“When your body goes into shock and it’s so cold, it’s hard to even think properly so of course she needed to get help as soon as she got out. They took her out and made sure she got warm,” Jack said.
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Michael said he and his son didn’t think twice about running out to help save the woman.
“I didn’t really think about it that much at the time and the ice is pretty thick it’s just kind of a freak thing,” he said. “The ice is thick. I just don’t know why it would go through there. I guess it’s a fairly heavy little machine.”
The fire department’s aquatic rescue team, Calgary police and Alberta Health Services were also on scene along with fire crews.
Calgary fire said the tractor is likely to remain at the bottom of the lake until it can be pulled out in the spring.
Calgarians are encouraged to stay off bodies of water such as rivers, community lakes and storm ponds as the ice can be dangerous.
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