What To Do If Your Vehicle Breaks Through Ice

It happens every winter. People drive on frozen familiar places: drive to their mid-lake ice fishing shanties or, almost as risky, drive on iced over local ponds or backwaters.

If your vehicle breaks through ice in shallow water (where the depth is less than chassis-deep), the problem is extricating the vehicle. In water so shallow, seldom more than knee-deep, driv

Still, extracting a vehicle that has gone through ice in shallow water usually defies such routine methods as laying out tire chains to give the tires traction or other means. If the distance to shore is short, the water shallow, and you have oversized (as SUV) tires, you may be able to drive out, tires breaking ice as you go until you're once again on solid ground.

Otherwise, you probably have to summon help, a tow truck or a motorist with a winch or tow chain.

The question you need to ask yourself: "How did I ever get into this fix?"

Drivers of vehicles that break through thin or thinning ice far from shore and in far deeper water often ask themselves the same question, sometimes, as alone, they hover near death.

Never drive on a frozen body of water unless locals are likewise driving the ice and tell you the ice is thick enough safely to support not just a car, but your vehicle, especially if yours is larger and heavier than most others driving the ice.

Whatever the local advice, beware of river ice. It is generally weaker than lake ice. Refr

And if you do drive on a frozen lake, don't park for long (heat from your vehicle may melt ice beneath it) or park next to other vehicles. The vehicles' combined weights may break even comparatively strong ice.

Wherever you drive on ice, leave at least one window open, despite the cold. With a window open, if your vehicle does begin to sink or plunge, that window may become your escape hatch. If the car submerges with a window open, pressure inside and outside equalize, permitting you quickly to open a door to escape. If the vehicle totally submerges in deep water, the escape method may differ.

In cold weather, almost any wetting risks hypothermia, the quick-chilling of the body, which in icy water can kill within minutes.

As your vehicle begins to break through the ice and submerge, you've got to act fast to prevent or minimize a potentially deadly ice water drenching.

What To Do

1. The moment you hear ice beneath your vehicle cracking, head either for shore (if you're close enough and the shore route ice seems firmer) or for wherever other vehicles are parked. You don't want to park too close to them, but obviously the ice beneath them is stronger than where you are.

2. If one end of your vehicle begins to break through the ice (almost always the heavy engine end), roll down a window, open a door if it will open (partial submergence may block its opening), and prepare to abandon your vehicle.

3. Simply stepping out of the vehicle may plunge you into icy water. Look before you step. While the heavy engine end may have partially submerged, exposing chill open water, the lighter end may have scarcely broken through. Ice surrounding that end may be strong enough to hold your weight.

4. Get out of the vehicle, abandon it, no matter if it has only broken through a foot or so of ice. Once it has broken through, you can do nothing to extricate it. You'll need help, almost certainly professional help, if your vehicle is to be saved.

5. If in getting out you were drenched in icy water, get to a warm place, into another vehicle perhaps, any place that affords warmth, preventing deadly hypothermia.

6. In your absence, or even as you watch, your vehicle may totally submerge. Or simply breaking through, it may later become frozen in colder nighttime temperatures. Freeing a frozen-in vehicle is a job for ice savvy salvage professionals.