Ice on rivers and lakes may be getting thicker but the Lifesaving Society of Manitoba wants to make sure you stay safe when heading onto the ice.

Operations Manager Kevin Tordiffe says a good rule of thumb is to make sure there are four inches of solid ice for walking, five inches for snowmobiles, and twelve to fifteen for larger vehicles. Tordiffe notes if you're with someone who falls throughout the ice, firstly call 911 and then evaluate what you can do to provide a safe rescue.

"Some of the important steps would be to include avoiding to venture out on the ice in the same fashion," explains Tordiffe.  "Try to find a reaching assist, which is a line or a rope that you could throw to them to keep yourself at a safe distance. If you have to venture onto the ice at all, stay down on your belly and distribute your weight as much as you can."

Tordiffe says when coaching people who have fallen through, step one is to calm them down, then to turn them so their backs are facing the direction they came from, get their hands on the ice, kick until their bodies are in a horizontal position and roll away until they are a safe distance from the point where they fell through.

Tordiffe urges people not to head out onto the ice alone.

"It always makes good sense to have a buddy or a partner with you," he says. "It’s that old adage of swimming with a buddy or adventuring with a buddy. It makes things a lot safer for everybody involved and certainly prepares people for the conditions into which they're planning to go out."