For two and a half hours last weekend Warrant Officer Mike Rarog remained submerged in the zero-degree waters of Jackfish Lake. Serving as a 'victim' during a training exercise, he learned the hard way that a leaky drysuit makes for a chilling time.
Dave Sullivan
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Apr 18/01) - A playful child ventures onto a snow-covered lake.
A neighbour gazing out a window happens to be watching, knowing melting ice layers won't support much weight this time of year.
The child falls through and the neighbour telephones for help.
What happens next depends where the accident took place, but plenty of emergency responders are trained to make a safe rescue if victims haven't been in the water too long.
In Yellowknife, the fire department has training and equipment to pull the child to safety. Outside the city, it's usually RCMP or trained armed forces people from 440 Squadron responding.
"Kids always like to fool around the water. We've all done it as kids," says RCMP Corporal John Milner. He was among 14 cops and military members brushing up their water rescue skills over the long weekend.
Wearing bright orange floater suits they took their ropes, clips and toboggans to Jackfish Lake. Warm water there discharged from power-generating turbines keeps much of the lake's ice cover precariously thin.
Warrant Officer Mike Rarog took the training in stride, spending two and a half hours in the zero-degree lake Sunday as a 'victim.' His military-issue drysuit should have kept him toasty, but it had a leak.
Still, he and the other course participants were having fun, which is important to instructor Corporal Ken Lawson-Williams.
"They'll learn better if they're enjoying themselves."
Last fall the rescuers twice put the training into practice. A woman died when her snowmachine went through Prosperous Lake, and a construction worker was saved after falling though Dome Lake while helping build an ice road.
If a victim has been in water more than 90 minutes, rescue operations become body searches and are turned over to the coroner's office.
In those cases the 440 Squadron members, who belong to the Field Deployment Unit, help by setting up camps at the scene.
Cpl. Lawson-Williams says in the Yellowknife area, more people get in trouble over water in autumn, when ice conditions are more difficult to predict.
In spring, ice may remain thick for some time, but its layers grow weak.
"People seem to have an understanding of that. They stay off the ice in spring."
The Field Deployment Unit is called into action an average of every two months. Its members use Twin Otter planes which, in most cases, fly in to assist other Forces' members in isolated areas.
"We tend to get called for weird stuff," Lawson-Williams says.
