COEUR d'ALENE - When someone falls through ice, the recommended action for would-be rescuers is to call for help. Let professionals with the right equipment handle it. Don't put yourself in danger.

Jim Hendrixson and Seth Patton didn't follow that advice Saturday morning at Rose Lake.

They couldn't. Not when they didn't have a cell phone handy. Not when there was no one else around to help an angler who broke through the ice at least a hundred yards from shore.

"I just reacted," Hendrixson said Monday. "You're not going to let somebody die."

"We did what we needed to do," Patton said.

And they likely saved a life.

The two men ran across the weakening ice and used a rope to pull the angler from the 35-degree water, not once, but twice.

Hendrixson estimates the ice was just an inch and half thick at the point of the accident - not nearly enough to be safe.

"We knew the conditions, but this guy clearly didn't," said Hendrixson, who was ice fishing with Patton, his future son-in-law, when he saw the man fall into the water about 10 a.m.

The ailing angler, an assistant pastor at a Spokane church, couldn't be reached for comment Monday.

The pastor, who spoke with a strong Russian accent, kept muttering, "You guys are my saviors," Patton said.

Hendrixson said he wanted to alert others the ice on area lakes is melting, and it can be dangerous to venture out too far.

"My concern isn't about me. My concern is about other guys," the Osburn man said. "We don't want to lose anybody."

Phil Cooper, Idaho Fish and Game regional conservation officer, said anglers should take care before going out on the ice. He went to Fernan Lake for ice fishing Friday, and found it was "marginal," which didn't make him feel safe enough to stay out there.

Cooper said people should not walk on lake ice unless it's clear and at least four inches thick

Smaller North Idaho lakes typically have several inches of solid ice in early February, but a recent warm spell melted much of it.

"Certainly the lakes in the Coeur d'Alene vicinity are not in very good condition for ice fishing," Cooper said.

This week's forecast is for lows in the 30s, so conditions aren't expected to improve. Many might be disappointed to hear that ice fishing, this winter, could be done.

"It may be an abbreviated ice fishing season this year," Cooper said.

Hendrixson said he knew the ice was "getting on the bad side" when he and Patton fished at Rose Lake Friday. They returned about 7:30 Saturday morning, but didn't venture out too far, and brought a rope with them.

"We both knew it was getting sketchy. It was the last day we were planning on going out," Patton said.

They saw another angler come out a hundred yards away an hour later. The angler continued to work his way farther out on the lake, which concerned Hendrixson.

"We should keep an eye on that guy," he said to Patton.

His counsel proved wise.

"I thought it was unlikely anything would happen," Patton said. "Then I heard Jim say, 'Oh my God.'"

The Pinehurst man saw a splash, the fisherman floundering and heard him yelling for help.

The ice-fishing friends didn't hesitate.

Hendrixson grabbed the rope and ran across the ice, checking for weak spots as he went, with Patton following.

Patton said they were aware of the danger and "definitely nervous" that one of them might fall through, too, when they charged ahead to help.

"It was definitely a risk on our part," Patton said.

Hendrixson stopped about 10-15 feet from the man, and tossed one end of the rope to him. After a five-minute struggle, he and Patton pulled him from the water.

But about 10 seconds later, the ice broke again, and the heavyset man, tiring by this point, went back into the water.

"The fight was out of him a little more than it was the first time," Patton said.

Still, Hendrixson and Patton, with bloodied hands, their feet slipping, dug in and pulled him free.

This time, the man laid flat on the ice as they dragged him closer to shore. They then walked him to his car, made sure he was warm, dry and OK, retrieved some of his equipment, before letting him head home.

All told, he might have been in the water 10 minutes.

"He probably was minutes away from dying," Patton said.

Hendrixson, a longtime ice fisherman, believes it was divine intervention that he and Patton were trying a new fishing spot on Rose Lake that morning.

"I believe God had us there," he said. "It was all part of a plan and it's for a purpose beyond what we may understand right now."