It was of course tragic to hear last weekend that four young boys lost their lives after they fell through ice at a park pool near Solihull. The boys were playing on the frozen pool at Babbs Mill Park, when the ice broke beneath them, three boys died at the scene despite best efforts to rescue them, while the other boy sadly died later on after being taken to hospital.
Tragic yet entirely needless deaths.
When I was a small child, some forty-odd years ago now, I was warned of the dangers of trying to walk on frozen water – it’s often not as thick as you think it is – and I heeded those warnings.
Yet despite the same warnings being issued every year, it seems that some people are still stupid enough to ignore them.
Since the tragic events of Solihull last weekend, there have been numerous reports of others doing the same, playing on or walking on frozen ponds, pools and canals.
People were filmed doing push ups and playing ice hockey on a frozen pond in Verulamium Park in St Albans, Hertfordshire.
Lincolnshire Police also reported that two young boys had walked across a canal in Grantham and three boys had later gone on to a frozen lake in Horncastle.
Officers in Cambridgeshire were called out to three incidents of children playing on frozen lakes and police in Northamptonshire also had calls about children on icy water on Saturday.
Telford First Responders said it was “incredibly sad” to see someone had taken their bike across a frozen pond.
Suffolk County Council reported on Friday that children in Lowestoft had tested ice on a frozen pond, which after an inspection was only a few centimetres thick.
In Derbyshire, young people were filmed messing around on an icy lake on Thursday, while in Liverpool, adults filmed skating on a frozen pond were “abusive” when warned of the dangers.
In Himley Park, Staffordshire, a woman was rescued from an icy lake after she went in to try to save her dog.
London Fire Brigade implored people to “stay off the ice and keep dogs on leads”.
“It may look sturdy enough to stand on, but it often isn’t. If you fall into icy water, the risk of hypothermia is high and can prove fatal,” a spokesman added.
“People on frozen water prompts urgent warning from police forces” – BBC News, 18th Dec 2022
It’s incredibly frustrating to read about this, and it makes me wonder why so many people are this stupid or brain-dead to think that walking around on ice is somehow ‘cool’. (excuse the pun)
It was noted by West Midlands Police that the boys who died at Babbs Mill Park had been seen ‘filming each other’, and videos of them had been ‘shared on social media’.
No doubt many of the other people seen walking around on frozen water have also been filming themselves. It is quite sad to think that so many people are now that addicted to the dopamine hit they get from social media attention (as well as monetisation), they will put themselves in ever more risky situations just to get those ‘likes’ and comments.
I think it is also dangerous that people can be influenced by what they see on social media and then try to copy, mimic or recreate. (In fact, I find the whole ‘social media influencer’ concept quite disturbing)
I have no time for the likes of TikTok or Instagram, but I do remember the ‘ice bucket challenge’ and some other nonsense about eating laundry detergent capsules (the ‘Tide Pod Challenge’). It is my opinion that there is probably some ‘viral trend’ which is encouraging youngsters (as well as social media addicted adults) to video themselves playing or walking about on frozen ponds.
So what do I mean about ‘natural selection’? As I have already said, it is sad and tragic that these boys lost their lives, but I am increasingly finding it hard to offer sympathy or even empathy, when people do stupid and reckless things that put their lives in danger, or even result in their deaths.
I can understand the parents being distraught and traumatised, but on the other hand where were they? Why did they allow their young children to be out on their own on such a cold day? Why did they not raise their children to understand the dangers of playing on ice? It seems to me there is a lot of ‘deflection’ at play, in these circumstances, everything has to be ‘someone else’s fault’, yet it seems to me that the only people to be blamed are those children who foolishly and recklessly played on the ice and caused their own deaths.
Natural selection sees the stupid people wipe themselves out, while only the fittest, strongest and most intelligent survive.
It’s not just children though, as we saw in references above, adults have also been seen walking around or even exercising on frozen pools and waterways.
On a side note, there was another tragic death this weekend in Birmingham, but no ice was involved.
A man has been arrested after another man was hit and killed by several vehicles on a busy road in Birmingham.
Police believe the 54-year-old was hit by a driver who did not stop on the Aston Expressway at about 22:00 GMT on Friday, near the Bagot Street junction.
The force said it was possible the drivers of the other vehicles did not know they had been involved.
A man was later arrested on suspicion of causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink.
“Birmingham Aston Expressway crash: Man arrested” – BBC News, 17th Dec 2022
I’m glad to hear that the driver was charged and prosecuted for drink-driving. But then again, that shouldn’t be a deflection away from why this person was hit by a car in the first place.
I’m familiar with that part of the A38 in Birmingham, it is not a road that pedestrians should be attempting to cross, after all there is a barrier along the central reservation, so you can’t get across anyway.
I don’t know the reasons for why this happened, but clearly it seems to me that if this pedestrian hadn’t foolishly walked into a busy road, then they most probably wouldn’t have been hit by a car and ended up dying. Stands to reason doesn’t it?
If you take actions that increase your risk of dying, then your risk of dying will increase. That makes perfect logical sense to me. If you end up dying as a result of the actions you take – whether that involves walking out onto a frozen park pool, or onto a busy road outside of a controlled crossing point – who is really to blame?
This is why I am finding it hard to sympathise with certain news stories and events, because it feels like more social engineering – “park pools are dangerous when they are frozen over so they need to be removed or filled in to stop people from dying”
Maybe this is why there is so much ‘dumbing down’ because they want an obedient and compliant population that will readily accept anything with a remote ‘risk to life’ being taken away from them?
Won’t stop the ‘stupid’ people though…
