At approximately 1:43 p.m. on New Year’s Day, the RIPTB (Régie intermunicipale de police Thérèse-De Blainville) call center received a call from a witness who saw someone who appeared to have fallen into the Mille Îles river. According to the witness, the man had his body in the water and his arms outside and was gripping the ice. He had his dog near him. The police quickly went to the scene and after locating the man, they used the life-saving equipment provided (rope bags), the man managed to grab onto a rope. All the agents then collaborated to pull the victim out of the water. The 28-year-old man, a resident of Boisbriand, was quickly taken to a hospital center. His condition was stable.
It is important to remind citizens not to venture onto bodies of water because the ice is not yet thick enough to walk there.
Warm temperatures can quickly decrease the thickness of ice, which must be at least 10 cm to support a human’s weight. A snowmobile requires 12 cm, a car 20 cm and a truck 30 cm. Residents should know that the thickness is not a guarantee of safety and that it is not uniform over the whole of a watercourse.
Venturing into uncharted places a high risk of incidents because a visual inspection is not enough to gage the ice thickness.
The intervention lasted about 25 minutes.
