I don't skate anymore but when I did, I was always scared by frozen lakes. I didn't trust the guys in charge of verification of the ice solidity or thickness.
A long time ago, on this forum, a user called
Didger was a frequent poster. He used to hike in the mountains very often and then, he stopped posting, for a few months. Later, his brother posted that his body was recovered from a lake or a pond, with his backpack still attached. Apparently, he walked on the frozen surface and suddenly the ice cracked and he went straight to the bottom, weighted by his heavy backpack.