What are friends for, if not to save your life every now and then?

Madison Sundberg, 10, found out what a good friend she had in Victoria Flores, 11, last Saturday when the two girls were tossing snowballs at each other on the frozen, snow-covered surface of Stansbury Lake.

Madison was kneeling to gather up snowballs on a center area of the lake near Delgada Lane. When she attempted to move, her boot kept sinking into the accumulated snow cover. Soon she was waist deep, with arms outstretched on either side of a small hole, struggling to keep from sinking deeper.

When Victoria realized her friend was falling through the lake ice she started screaming, "Maddie fell through the ice!"

Victoria then slid over and put her arms underneath Madison's and pulled her out of the freezing water.

"I have no idea why Victoria didn't go through too," Victoria's grandmother, Bonnie Beck, said. "She outweighs Maddie by 60 pounds."

"Victoria said Madison was lighter than a feather," Beck added. "It must have been the adrenaline running."

Despite being cold, wet and scared, Madison walked back to shore with Victoria.

Because the Flores and Sundberg homes are not on the lake, the girls' parents said they didn't think they had to worry about their children too much during the winter months.

"It scared her," said Madison's mother, Taralee Sundberg. "And, of course, I took that time to talk to my kids about ice safety. In hindsight I thought, 'Why didn't I talk to her about that?' I talk to her about other safety issues."

The Tooele County Sheriff's office issued a thin-ice advisory recently to warn people to stay off snow-covered ice, which may be deceptively thin.

Realization of what could have happened hit Madison later that evening. She wrote Victoria a letter thanking her for saving her life. In it, she included a fast-food coupon that she had received recently at school.

"Victoria didn't feel like it was a heroic thing to do," Beck said. "She was in awe of what she had done, but didn't want any praise."

Jamie Belnap: jamieb@tooeletranscript.com