It takes a lot to freeze to death

However, don't quote me on this or try to test this out.  Because I don't want you to die trying something like this.

I saw a picture of a frozen soldier recently out of world war II where he died fallen down and then they stood him up to scare other soldiers in the snow because he was frozen stiff.

It made me think of falling through the ice with my rear end on a frozen lake (Castle Lake) in luckily shallow water a few months ago now. I was trying to go from the land to the lake on skis but misjudged the slipperiness of the ice on that edge of the lake and wound up crashing my rear end through ice. This was pretty scary because I could not take off my skis that were still on top of the ice.

But luckily, (this is why you should always ski with one or more friends so you are not alone in conditions like this. Because I might have either died or had to go to the hospital if I was alone.

So, I called to my nearest friend to come take off my skis but I couldn't lift my mid body out of the water and ice (the air was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit too) at the time but the wind wasn't over 10 or 20 mph so it wasn't that bad. So, after my friend removed my skis I had to stand up in the water to be able to walk out of the lake but luckily it was under 3 feet deep there near the edge. So, having never done something this type of stupid before I wondered whether at 67 I was going to survive this or not.

So, now I'm wet with literally ice cold water (the lake was frozen) and in temperatures about 20 degrees Fahrenheit and about 6 blocks or more from my 4 wheel drive. So, first I attempted walking through the snow but I wasn't doing well because I was starting to go into shock sort of. So, the three of us opted for skiing across the lake at a safer location to get to my truck sooner. This worked. So, I got to the truck and sat on a completely waterproof work jacket that was rubberized so I wouldn't damage the interior seats of the truck with water. However, I didn't try to take my pants off and change right then I just turned the heater on and headed for my hotel room. This turned out okay and within an hour or two soaking in a hot bath I was okay with no frostbite or other problems except parts of my body were very red from almost freezing.

One reason I was okay is that I didn't get wet above my belly button so I as actually hot from skiing when my rear end went through the ice. So, it was mostly about redistributing the heat and not losing too much heat so I couldn't walk because of hypothermia and shock.

This all was surprising to me because I thought it was all going to be much worse but turned out okay in the end.