WINNIPEG — A Manitoba woman captured a chilling near-death experience on video as the truck she was in plunged through the ice.
Ko'ona Cochrane, an assistant director at Traditional Family Parenting in Winnipeg, and her fiance, Ivon Saber, were driving across the ice of Lake Winnipeg.
She was shooting video and doing a running commentary about seeing other trucks and lots of people out on the ice. She first posted a video on Facebook that focused on some birds they'd seen, and had a foreshadowing of what was about to happen.
At one point, the couple watched an eagle fly away from the ice.
"All right, people. This is what I get to live! Oh my gosh, he's gorgeous!"
She described what lay ahead including an open crack ridge on the ice.
"It probably happened within the first few weeks of freezing, and now we've got to find a way of getting around it. That's the third crack that we've come across like this."
The truck, going quite quickly, approached the stretch.
"OK, love, we may survive or we may not," she said.
Cochrane giggled and shrieked as the truck flew across the ice.
"We did it!" she cried.
In a second video, the truck was seen driving along when Cochrane saw a suspicious patch of ice and asked: "Why are you slowing down?"
Suddenly, chaos ensued. Saber yelled "Bail! Bail!" Cochrane screamed as the video went haywire, at one point appearing to dip under the water.
The pair managed to scramble to safety as the truck slipped under the ice. They weren't hurt and RCMP arrived to pick them up and take them to Arbourg.
Cochrane then posted a video asking if anyone could pick up her and her fiance and take them to the Peguis First Nation.
Throughout it all, Cochrane did not appear to lose her upbeat spirit.
"Good bye truck but at least we alive," she wrote on Facebook.
When somebody noted the video was terrifying and not in the least funny, she wrote: "Actually it kinda waz until I lost muh truck :("
Kate Kehler wrote: "Holy Ko'ona Cochrane so very sorry you went through that! How terrifying! I have been on ice roads (never gone through) and I was never 'comfortable'. We have got to do better on access to remote communities!"
"Well next time I'll follow an actual ice road not fishing routes :/" Cochrane replied.
