To think this is without doubt one of the most irresponsible parenting fails ever?

[Charlie97]

Talking the dog for a walk, very cold and icy here today. We drove to a common nearby, it's just stunning when it's covered in white frosting.

On the drive alongside the common, there is a pond. A family of five where walking across the large frozen lake!

Three children, mum and dad.

I wanted to stop the car and tell them to get off and to stop putting their children in such massive danger.

OH, said it's none of our business drive on.

Why would you do that, everyone knows it's so bloody dangerous.

The only time I've walked on frozen water was in the great freeze of 2010 on Christmas day. It was the local canal, no more than three feet deep and it was frozen solid. However, it was incredibly slippy. I did not go to the middle.

On researching those who climb Mount Everest, I was shocked to come across a picture of a family, dad, stepmum and 14 year old teenage boy on the top. I was aghast that people would bring a young teenager up such a dangerous mountain.

I have seen young parents attempt to walk up to tors in Dartmoor with toddlers and two hours of sunlight left. They got short shrift from me.

There is no accounting for what people will do.

Is it possible that rather than being stupid as most people are suggesting, they simply come from a country where walking or skating on natural ice is considered quite normal? If this is the case, they may not be aware how much thinner the ice tends to be here in comparison to other countries

How exactly is that 'not stupid'?

Cory. We certainly don't. There are loads of lakes near me, I couldn't tell you a thing about them except which were great for tadpoles when I was a kid and which are the least busy on a summer day...😁 However, I sure as fuck wouldn't be walking on any of them, despite having spent a winter skating on a canal (Canada) & travelling by bus on ice (fucking freaky!) in Helsinki. Some people really shouldn't be allowed outdoors.

OP,

I'd have felt the same, in your position.

I've never gone anywhere near bloody frozen lakes, after being traumatised (at aged 9...thanks, irresponsible teenage brother of friend!) by watching a scene in The Omen 2.

Warning: scroll past the following, if you're easily upset...

IIRC, kids playing ice hockey, kid falls through ice, slips under said ice and his desperate teammates watch him float past, drowning as he scrabbles to free himself, looking upwards at them from underneath

Horrific.
(Though perhaps an effective deterrent for police/ schools/ Unis etc. to screen to idiots who persist in putting themselves & others in danger?!).

I know, I know. I wasn't there at the time!

Point is, he was much better equipped in terms of his relative body size to survive than a little child would be, but he was really not good when he came out. A child would be far worse off!

Cory

The British dont have the same intimate connection with the natural environment?

Says who? I assure you outside of the big cities its totally different.

Annie, because if they're doing something that's considered normal in their home country and don't realize the relative increased risks here, I'd say that's due to ignorance or lack of knowledge, not stupidity.

I used to wild swim and sea swim all year round. Shock of the cold is never taken into account when those who are not used to it do it. Shock is a killer and often renders the drowning person helpless.

I would have said something, the potential risk is too great. I was walking around some frozen ponds today; I wouldn't even go within five foot of the edge.

User, a large and as far as I know fairly deep expanse of water! Is that ok with you

Not really. You said pond and then large lake in the space of a sentence. Thats like the difference between a vlllage and a city, and is directly related to how dangerous the said activity is, so its not really ok.

yes it is thick-london is cold but not scandanavian cold theyre idiots

But op you say yourself that you don't know how deep it was - it may not have been deep at all! It would have to by much colder than its been to freeze a deep lake. The fact lots of people were on it suggests it wasn't deep (someone suggested it may not have even been a lake or pond?)

The age of the kids is relevant too if it was shallow (knee depth) and kids were age 8+ etc then I'd be less concerned

But NoBetter, if they do come from a country where walking on ice is normal, surely they would be more clued-up about testing ice safety etc? More aware of the dangers of thin ice?

(Assuming that they come as they probably would from a place which does experience thaw at some time during the year- not from the North Pole.)

Parents weren't around. The kids were playing outside one of them grandmother's house and left. While she was searching for them, they went to the park to see the ducks.

I met only one set of parents (the ones whose kid was resuscitated) after that and they were very grateful. Mother was actually very angry at her MIL. And father had the worst case of catbum face I've ever seen. I think she wasn't keen on leaving her DS with GM in the first place and turned out to be right.

We were womble hunting this morning too! I wanted to scream at them, what the hell did they think they were doing? The children couldn't have been that old. There were older people walking on there too. I just don''t understand why they would put their children in that sort of danger. My 3 year wanted to do it as well so a long talk about why we never do that ensued.

Callard, spot on!!

Although I'm surprised the rangers weren't around?

It really was such a bad example to other children as well!

Cory, there are many places in Norway where you do not know the depth of the water though several hundred feet would be a good guess for those in the know.

Horrific series of deaths near where I live a few years back when a man tried to rescue his dog. Icy water is so dangerous _ I really would have shouted at them, we all make silly errors of judgement and sometimes need to be told about them!

You don't have to be Scandinavian to know that walking on ice in London is asking for trouble. It hasn't been minus anything in the day time this winter and the frost is melted by 11am. It's only even been icy for about a week tops.

Possibly cory. I was just trying to come up with alternative scenarios to, "they're thick" baring in mind many people do things which are inappropriate to the nature in that country if they're not familiar.

Of course it's a massive assumption that they are not British, but as I said, trying to come up with alternative scenarios.

I was surprised to drive through a nearby town today and see the village pond frozen, with a couple of shopping trolleys on the top

We have a huge pond near us but at its deepest it's only 3ft so no danger at all really
aaarrrrrggggghhhh SO STUPID!!
What do you think happens when someone falls through the ice? Do you think they just hop back up onto the frozen ice and go home a bit wet and chilly?
As they fall through, the ice around them breaks - the family may all fall through together. At 3ft deep the fall is likely to soak you up to your neck, you could possibly even go under depending on how you fall. You are then frozen, moving and breathing will be very difficult. Any attempts to get back up onto the ice will fail as the ice around the break will be weak so every time you try to climb out, you'll end up back in. If you are very close to the edge there's a reasonable chance of you getting out, any further out and you would be helpless, as would any witnesses on the side. And if there's any undercurrent at all, you're fucked.
Hypothermia would set it very quickly before you drowned.
No danger at all really?

Near here the river was still frozen at 5pm, it had been frozen for days but the ice was only a light layer like skin on custard in parts. It looked safe and some kids were talking about going on it; I threw a large stick on one part and it bounced off, in other part it went straight through. They were to see what happened.

I remember a few years ago (probably 2010) there was a picture of 2 adults walking on a Cumbrian lake and it wasn't even frozen all the way across. One of them had a baby on their back. Everybody knows those lakes are deep (it might even have been Coniston).

I'm an (admittedly short) adult and I think I'd struggle to drag myself out of 3 foot of icy water, fully dressed.

Is it one of the ponds on Wimbledon Common?

We used to run across it well I would stay right by the edges just in case the ice cracked I was never that stupid daring

It would be full of children running across fuck knows what our parents were doing probably sitting in the pub after giving us instructions to stay away from the ponds

Yes it is ridiculously dangerous

m.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/poppy-widdison-4-pair-to-be-sentenced-today-more-than-3-years-after-her-death-follow-it-here/story-30070532-detail/story.html

Most irresponsible parents ever? Really OP? Give your head a waggle