Va. Firefighters Pluck Girl From Icy Pond

Feb. 3, 2014
The nine-year-old was fighting for her life after falling into the frigid water.

Feb. 03--A 9-year-old girl was fighting for her life Sunday night after rescuers rushed to free her from beneath the ice of a pond near the Treehouse apartment complex off Wilkinson Road in Henrico County.

Firefighters rescued the girl after she fell through the pond's ice and ended up trapped beneath it shortly before 4 p.m. Sunday, according to county fire officials.

"The firefighters came off of the engine, grabbed a ladder, ran down to the pond, threw the ladder onto the pond, crawled out, found her underneath the ice (and) broke through the ice and pulled her out," said Capt. Daniel E. Rosenbaum, public information officer with Henrico's Division of Fire.

The ladder spread the firefighters' weight across a wider section of ice, allowing them to reach the girl. She was in cardiac arrest when she was rescued from the pond, Rosenbaum said. Firefighters were able to restore a pulse with CPR. She was taken to VCU Medical Center, where she was in critical condition Sunday evening, according to Rosenbaum.

Rosenbaum said firefighters' quick response was vital.

"If she makes it, it's going to be all due to them," he said.

It wasn't immediately clear how the girl had fallen through the ice, Rosenbaum said.

"You can have one area of the pond that the kids could walk on, or a grown man could walk on, and then you have another area that maybe the sun has been hitting all day," he said. "And you wouldn't even know it until you stepped on it, and then you're in the water."

Several children were playing near the pond and, after the girl fell through, they alerted adults who called for a rescue, the captain said. The pond was about waist-deep for an adult in the area where the girl fell through, he said.

Rosenbaum said a quick response was critical to the rescue. The call came in at 3:49 p.m., he said, and firefighters arrived at 3:52. The girl was out of the ice by 4 p.m., and the ambulance was headed to the hospital five minutes later.

"Being able to get her out in that time frame, that made the biggest difference in the world," he said.

One firefighter fell through the ice during the rescue and had to be helped out of the muddy pond, Rosenbaum said. He and other firefighters who got wet during the rescue were taken to a nearby fire station to dry off and warm up.

Copyright 2014 - Richmond Times-Dispatch, Va.

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