Three of them fell into the water while waiting to be rescued, but luckily managed to climb back up on the ice and put on spare clothes that they had brought with them. At about 11:00 am police reported that everyone was taken back to land safely.
According to the weather forecast for Gjøvik, the air temperature was around 0 — 2 degrees centigrade. “The temperature is fine, so they didn’t suffer,” Per Olsen, a representative of the local operational service center, told the journalists. After passing a quick check by the ambulance crew, the ice skaters were able to reunite with their companions.
The ice-skaters explained that they belonged to a group of sport enthusiasts coming from Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands. They were crossing the lake Saturday morning, moving from the opposite shore to Gjøvik. While the rest of the group reached the lakeside successfully, the unlucky 16 were cut off by a growing crack in the ice that eventually led to their drifting off in the water.
