[SamAdams76]

I fell through ice on a river once when I was about 12 years old. It was a very scary experience. Fortunately I was not in water over my head so I was able to keep standing up but I could feel the current trying to pull me under. My buddies were able to pull me back to the bank but if I was by myself, I don't think I would have been able to pull myself up and over the ice without breaking more ice and falling in again.

By the time I got home, my pants were frozen solid. I did not dare tell my parents what happened until years later. The punishment they would have wielded out (for me putting myself in that situation in the first place) would have been far worse!

There was a lake up in Melrose, MA that we used to play hockey on. It was called Spot Pond. A Melrose fire truck would drive onto the lake and park in the middle. That told the rest of us the ice was safe. If the fire truck wasn't there, we weren't allowed to go onto it.

I never did figure out how the Melrose FD knew the ice was safe enough to drive a truck out there in the first place. I don't think they ever lost a truck.

[Pearls Before Swine]

They probably walked out and drilled a hole to assess the ice thickness first.

[Inspectorette]

We had a little mudhole at the end of the street at the apartment complex where I lived. One of the upstairs tenants was a big, burly Massachusetts state trooper. The kids would bang on his apartment door and have him come out and jump up and down on the ice to test it. He grumped and growled, but always did it for the kids.