We try to avoid the dreaded white stuff as much as possible, but pack our Stabilicers along in winter, just in case...

I keep my Fox whistle on a neck lanyard and wear it all the time for these kinds of situations...immobilized and just out of sight of safety.

BTW, thanks to Blast for the heat shrink safety release idea for neck lanyards buried somewhere in this forum.

Looks good. Except for one point.

If you forget to take them off and walk across the hardwood floor your going to wish you were stuck on a frozen slope all alone because the DW is going to kill you.

On the positive side with those on you might be able to dash outside and lose her crossing the ice. Also pays to have a well insulated doghouse.

That actually happened to me once. I was 14, on a boy scout trip (a planned 10 day excursion. This was day 1). Went to the edge of a river, on granite rock. Somehow slipped (was about a foot or 2 back). Down I went into Class V (heck, it might have been X!) rapids. Bounced off some rocks, smashed into one long enough to catch my breath, went off some small waterfalls (thought I broke my legs it hurt so bad)... somehow made it to the side (current? Luck? God?) and hauled my butt out of there.

It was a pretty quite hike the rest of the day.

Presumably had he tried, the message would have been stored by the phone and then sent the moment service became available. So it might have got sent earlier than waiting for the human to notice the phone has service. Especially as a short period of service suffices to send the text, which a human might overlook.