AURORA, IL – According to reports, police officers with the Aurora Police Department (APD) saved a drowning child from an icy pond.
Aurora Police were called to a frozen section of a retention pond after receiving a report that a boy was drowning. The boy reportedly fell through the ice while trying to retrieve a football. A woman also entered the pond to try to save him.https://t.co/PzpHbwLTf0
— KGET 17 News (@KGETnews) November 26, 2022
The nine-year-old fell into an icy retention pond around 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 23rd. Police said that the young boy fell in while trying to get a football.
When officers arrived on scene, they saw that an adult woman also went into the pond in an attempt to save the child drowning. In the Facebook post, APD said that officers went into the pond and saved both the woman and the child.
The young child was sent to the hospital to be treated for minor injuries in addition to two police officers who rescued the child from the icy pond.
Body camera video released by APD shows officers using a water rescue kit to bring both the child and adult back to land; two officers went into the cold water.
In an interview released by the police department, the mother of the child who was drowning said that she thought her “son was not going to be here” when she saw him drowning. She added:
“I want to thank all the people who rescued him.”
The Aurora Police and Fire departments rushed to the scene around 4:30 p.m. for a report of a 9-year-old boy who had fallen through ice into a retention pond, along with the child's mother who went in attempting to save her son.https://t.co/TNKuQXoXS2
— FOX Baltimore (@FOXBaltimore) November 25, 2022
In Jacksonville, Florida, an officer who cannot swim jumped into a pond to save a baby that was drowning.
On June 9th, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) said that police officers responded to a report of an infant drowning. Officer Me’Atia Sanderson was first on scene and was told that the child was still in the retention pond.
Without any hesitation, Sanderson entered the pond to save the child’s life enough though she did not know how to swim herself. In the body camera footage released by JSO, Sanderson can be heard saying:
“Oh, Lord.”
The video then shows Sanderson rushing into the water to save the child. She quickly began CPR until she was relieved by other responding officers. Thanks to Sanderson’s heroic actions, the baby did survive.
In a letter written by Capt. Christopher Scott with the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department, be recognized Sanderson’s “quick and decisive decision to go into the retention pond.” He added:
“Her actions, while putting her own life at risk, undoubtedly saved the child’s life.”
Although the incident happened back in June, JSO did not release the body camera footage until November 22nd, to highlight the officer’s heroic actions during the Thanksgiving holiday. In a social media post, the Sheriff’s Office wrote:
“As we continue our #weekofthanks, we at the #JSO are thankful that we have officers like Ofc. Sanderson, who day in and day out, take on the challenges and dangers of this job.”
In Wyandotte, Michigan, police officers and to fisherman joined forces to rescue a man who attempted to commit suicide by jumping into the Detroit River.
The incident happened around 3:00 p.m. on November 7th, when police received multiple calls about a suicidal man who had jumped into the river.
Shortly after, police confirmed that a 30-year-old man who was having a mental crisis, intentionally jumped off the pier at Bishop Park into the extremely cold river. Deputy Police Chief Archie Hamilton said in a statement:
“The man was several hundred feet away from shore, which made it impossible to rescue him without a watercraft. A few quick-thinking officers – Ken Groat, Nicholas Stathakis, and Joe Carr – asked a couple fishermen for assistance. Without hesitation, Stephen Fendelet and Kenneth Rodenhouse told the officers to jump on their boat.”
Wyandotte officers, fishermen team up to rescue suicidal man who jumped into river https://t.co/9FpnbKVSL9 pic.twitter.com/IGxRvqKjBG
— The News-Herald (@NewsHeraldMI) November 16, 2022
The group of five men raced toward the drowning man and were able to pull him out of the water just in the nick of time.
Once the man was brought back safely to shore, the Wyandotte Fire Department paramedics took control of the situation.
The man was then transported to a nearby hospital to be treated for any injuries. In a Facebook post, the Wyandotte Police Department (WPD) said:
“We were able to take him to the hospital for mental and health purposes. These are scary situations because a suicidal person oftentimes will resist and fight with the person(s) trying to save them, putting the do-gooders in harm’s way.”
Hamilton echoed those comments, praising all five of the rescuers for their heroic actions. He said:
“The actions by these officers and citizens saved this man’s life, without question. Despite a happy ending, this situation could have easily turned deadly for our rescuers. There was a legitimate threat that the small fishing boat could have capsized when the men pulled the victim from the water. Luckily, the struggling man was too weak to fight the rescuers, which allowed them to keep the boat afloat and complete the rescue.”
