Thanks, Boat Guy.
I'm always looking to add preparedness thinking and ideas to benefit situations in safety and prevention, so from viewing both videos many times I've observed both Polar Plunges resulting in very quick and efficient getting out of the cold water and back onto the ice. Both people went in deep, so coming back up was swimming up with the momentum that I've suggested in previous self rescue posts:
http://www.bigfishtackle.com/cgi-bin/gfo...time&mh=25
From reading a lot on the subject of falling through the ice, I see:
1. that many who get in trouble struggle ineffectively and combined with the cold, they quickly lose strength. But, our fine Polar Plungers did an admirable job of using a swimming up momentum combined with strength not yet diminished by chilling by doing a fine job immediately and with ease and no struggle at all.
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2. Some get in trouble by a natural reflex that is supposedly very difficult to suppress which is uncontrollable gasping and breathing in the frigid water into the lungs once under water.
Obviously, our brave Polar Plungers had total control of their breathing and did not inhale frigid water. The preparedness concept here is the same as sports visualization that athletes do to think ahead and put into your mind exactly what you will do and renewing that thought as you are going under water to hold your breath and not gasp in water. The young man probably practiced his very efficient extraction method in swimming pools.
Also notable was they not only didn't need any assistance, they also didn't need any ice spikes or anything other than their bare hands.
Still, for preparedness, I carry an extra pair of ice anchors in my pocket and rope. Even though I believe I will never need them for self rescue and I will pop back onto the ice just fine, it's preparedness just in case and I carry them should I ever need to rescue others from falling through which would be even more needed should I have to dive in for an under ice search. It would also be good for a large area of weak ice to have the rope anchored to strong ice.
In summery of all this, the potentially life saving thinking we need to keep in our minds while ice fishing is what we learn here which is:
1. to control your breathing against the gasp reflex which has a component of not panicking
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2. also not to panic by not struggling to try to keep above the water thus denying yourself the swimming up momentum to work in your favor because we see how well momentum helps in self extraction in these videos. (Of course, the exception to this needs to be strong river currents under ice, so that's where it's prudent to have two people with separation and with ropes attached.)
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3. Our Polar Plungers had firm ice for this project, but keep in mind that should you fall through ice that is weak that you must turn around to get onto the ice that was stronger instead of struggling against more weak ice that will break again and use up your precious seconds of muscle warmth while your muscles are still at full strength.
Here is how the experts getting back onto the ice use momentum showing the value of momentum. You might laugh, but our Polar Plungers proved to us that momentum is effective in helping get back on the ice though not as good as these experts who make the point well:
https://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/...-Water.gif
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