Peter-Vincent Schuld

Your reporter’s only experience with ice skating dates back decades and is limited to riding some crooked skates and to be honest, occasionally stepping on “thin ice”.

But we can imagine, albeit with difficulty, that you want to go to that slippery stuff with the onset of cold.

Every time an ice age occurs, lasting from a few days to a few weeks, the ice fever begins. Ice skating, ice skating and very romantic, the indispensable hot chocolate. Not to mention the hope of an Elfstedentocht

Because we at Facts Found are concerned about your safety and health, we will discuss with you how you can best protect yourself against the dangers. Because skating comes with some risks. Now we are not going to exaggerate because there are risks associated with everything we do and hardly anyone chooses to end up in an ambulance where it is nice and warm again, but where your insurer and therefore also you, pay for the costs.

Although the glasses of Berenburg and schnapps beckon, it is a bit unwise whether or not to skate with alcohol. Whether you wander on the A12 or on the Vinkeveense plassen is not so relevant. Drunkenly banging against people who move around by car or by means of strapped or put on skates is not really one of the recommendations.

We humans have a head. Some of us have a head with substance. Make sure it stays warm and wear at least a hat or even better a helmet. If you fall and hit the ice with your head or something else, both the head and any contents present will remain protected.

If you fall, fall alone and don’t try to hold anyone, because you will take this person with you in your fall. If it is your partner who is not too bad, this can mean a break in the bones as well as in your relationship.

A skate is like a knife, the better sharpened the better it functions. Make sure you go on the ice with sharpened skates. Everyone slips from time to time, but sharpened skates reduce the risk of accidents.

Thin natural ice and full-figured to corpulent people are not a good match. Make sure the ice you are on is thick enough for it to hold you. If you are on thinner ice, do not move too much and do not move with too many people. The fluctuating pressure can cause you to end up in the ice-cold water. Your reporter is also proactively considering concluding a contract with Mammoet Berging and Salvage in case he has to go on the ice very reluctantly and runs risks.

So the moral of this part of the safety story is that you first have to check whether the ice is strong enough.
If you fall through the ice, know that you have a maximum of 2 minutes to get out.
Once under water, look for the differences to find the hole, you will find it by looking for the color differences in the ice, if it is all dark find the light spot, if it is all dark around you, find the light spot. For bystanders trying to help… Sure you, call 112 immediately, if you have the opportunity take the person directly to the surface and to a heated room and get rid of the victim’s wet clothes and make sure they get dry clothes even if they are just large bath towels. Wet clothes for a hypothermic person are disastrous.

Frostbite: at temperatures around freezing or just above, you will feel your skin tingling, that is stage 1 of the frostbite, but relatively harmless, if your hands start to hurt and feet start to hurt and your skin turns red, you have reached the second stage of the frostbite, is not recommended. It could be worse, they call it the third phase. In this stage, your tissue can be damaged and even your nerves can start to die. This is called dry gangrene. If you continue to be exposed to the cold against your better judgment, this can result in amputations where the next time you want to skate in the hellish cold you can say “look at this…. without hands”.

I wish you all a lot of skating fun, you won’t see your reporter on the ice.