A Canadian woman unknowingly pretended to take a selfie while standing on top of her car - as it sank in a river of ice - over the weekend.

Photos taken from the coast of the Rideau River in Ottawa, the unidentified woman in a red winter coat apparently casually shows a quick selfie of herself as she stands on the rear window of the yellow vehicle, which is mostly submerged in the water and slowly sinks around 4.30pm Sunday .

"She's on top of the car she needs to get in," a worried resident says in a video taken from the coast, as two people can be seen preparing to send a kayak off the ice to the woman.

In a follow-up video, the woman can be seen safely inside the kayak as a man pulls her and the boat with a rope to a thicker part of the ice closer to land.

A man then says to the woman, who was now standing on the ice, apparently untouched by the ordeal: "Do not go towards the car, please come closer."

Video from another neighbor's backyard showed the vehicle driving at high speed past on the ice moments before it stopped and began to sink.

"We were on the river in Kars and this car flew completely down the river. I was shocked at how fast it went ... and that it was a car on the terrible river! She's lucky she did not hurt others. tweeted Julie Bowman.

Police and paramedics responded to a report of a partially submerged vehicle, and when they arrived, they found that the driver had been rescued, Ottawa police said in a press release.

Social media users criticized the woman's apparent selfie during the very dangerous situation.

"She captured the moment with a selfie while people were in a hurry and worried about helping her," Lynda Douglas tweeted with a face palm emoji.

The woman was not injured, police said, and she refused treatment to paramedics who arrived.

The driver was charged, according to police, with a case of dangerous operation of a motor vehicle.

Police said the ice she was driving across is thinner than other parts of the river and that ice conditions at this time of year "can be unpredictable."

"No ice is safe ice," they said.