IL Firefighters Rescue Boy from Frozen Pond

An 11-year-old boy who fell through the ice on a Naperville retention pond was rescued Sunday afternoon by the Naperville fire and police departments, authorities said.

Firefighters found the boy in the middle of the frozen pond in an apartment complex about 4:55 p.m. in the 1300 block of McDowell Road after someone called 9-1-1, the department said in a news release. The boy told rescuers that his feet were stuck in the muddy bottom.

The responders threw the boy a rescue disc on a rope, which was used to pull him to the surface of the icy pond and hoist him onto dry land within four minutes, E.M.S. Bureau Chief James Kubinski said in the release.

The fire department released a 90-second video of the rescue, which shows the boy in the center of an iced over pond wearing a coat and a hat.

“Stay there, stay there!” some of the firefighters can be heard saying after the disc was thrown to the boy. The neon orange disc landed to the side of the boy at first before rescuers guided it closer to him.

In the video, the boy is seen swimming toward the disc and grabbing it. While he kept hold of it, rescuers pulled the boy toward the shore with the rope as a diver jumped into the water and swam toward him.

When they met, the diver rotated and swam behind the boy until he was pulled onto the snowy ground and helped to his feet. Authorities walked him toward an ambulance, where he received medical treatment. He was taken to Edward Hospital, where his condition was stabilized.

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