Firefighters rescued a teenage girl who fell through the ice of a frozen pond, plunging into the 30-foot-deep water of a Massachusetts lake.
When rescue teams arrived at Fellsmere Pond in Malden, a suburb north of Boston, around 2 p.m. Wednesday, they found the 14-year-old girl holding onto the edge of the ice, NBC Boston reported.
Officials with the Malden Fire Department had to break the rest of the ice to pull the girl out of the frigid waters to safety. They said they were able to make the save within about 30 seconds of their arrival.
“I don’t even think the engine stopped,” Captain Roy Tribble said, recalling the harrowing rescue. “I jumped up, I sprinted here, pretty much just jumped right into the water.”
The girl was conscious and alert when she was brought to a nearby hospital for treatment, officials said. It was not clear what the girl was doing on the ice at the time of the incident.
“A life was saved. It was a young girl who fell through the ice,” added Captain Bob Hegarty.
The fire officials urged others to stay off ice – noting that this particular pond was about 30 feet deep.
“A warning to everybody out there that ice, if it’s not thick enough, you’re going to fall through, and if you fall through, you’re not going to be able to get yourself out,” Hegarty said.
“So stay off the ice until it’s very thick, which – who can tell if it’s very thick?” he added.
