|
As reported on NBC-TV's "Dateline",
early last winter two teenage girls taking a shortcut to school
plunged through thin ice on a lake in southern New Jersey.
A boy walking his dog heard their screams and raced out to save them.
As he approached the girls, the ice gave way under his feet too.
Now three helpless teenagers were struggling in the frigid water.
The barking dog attracted the attention of neighbors who dialed 911.
Firemen arrived at the lakeshore with no emergency equipment,
but they found a canoe and crunched their way through the ice to the victims.
They pulled the two girls out to safety, but there was no room for the boy.
While firemen wrapped the girls in blankets
and rushed them to an ambulance, the boy's head disappeared under water.
He had been in the water fifteen minutes. Only his dog remained,
barking and pawing at the ice near the hole where he had vanished.
The rescue workers paddled back to the scene, and acting on a hunch,
they chopped a hole in the ice, and there they found him --
unconscious, not breathing, no pulse.
Pulling him out, they rushed him to shore and off to the hospital,
where he lay motionless in a coma. Two weeks passed,
and everyone feared the worst. Then, miraculously, he woke up.
This story has a happy ending. But what about next time?
Keep a Nordic Lifeline and a pair of Ice Claws on hand.
You never know when you may need them.
|
