High school freshmen boys save two little kids from drowning in frozen pond
When a family day turned into a nightmare.
Olivia Heid and her little brother, RJ were just 8 and 4 respectively when this incident happened.
On a Thursday morning two years ago, the two kids were playing in the backyard of their home on Harmony Road, Middletown, New Jersey. After a delicious lunch, the kids’ mother, Stephanie Irlbeck, suggested they try to do sledding.
It’s Olivia and RJ’s first time sledding. They happily accepted the offer and off they went to the Beacon Hill Country Club.
“We have two saucer sleds, but my husband insisted on bringing this big blow-up inner tube sled,” Stephanie told Patch. “We spent half an hour sitting in the car blowing that thing up.”
They had no idea that inflatable sled would later on become a very important key in saving their kids.
They arrived at the Beacon Hill Country Club and ended up choosing a much smaller hill for the kids.
Another thing was that the main hill was too crowded and steep, not very ideal for Olivia and RJ considering it was their first time sledding. To the right of the hill was a pond which the couple didn’t mind at all since it was situated from quite a distance.
The kids’ first slide went perfectly fine, so Olivia and RJ climbed back up the hill to try it again. The older sister sat on the inflatable sled first, then her younger brother sat on her lap.
Their dad, Rich Heid, powered up their sled’s speed by giving them a big push. Little did he know, that’s when their nightmare would start.
The supposed to be perfect family day suddenly took an unexpected turn when the siblings’ sled hit a patch of ice near a tree.
Their inflatable sled blew up and they went straight ahead into the pond. The sled floated for a while as expected, but it kept losing air and it also started to lose its ability to carry the siblings and keep them afloat.
Inch by inch, Olivia and RJ were close to being completely swallowed by the pond.
Thankfully five high school freshmen, Kieran Foley, 14, Joseph Dietrich, 14, Drew Scalice, 14, Ryan Day, 15, and Tyler Armagan, 14, were nearby when the unfortunate incident happened. They were also there to sled and they were checking if the pond was frozen by throwing rocks in it when they heard people shouting.
One of the teens, Kieran, immediately jumped into the water to save the kids.
“I didn’t see anyone else be able to do anything, so I just jumped in,” he said while trying to recall what happened. “I was like, whatever. It wasn’t deep so I could walk right over to them. I picked them up and my friends formed a chain and we got the boy first, and handed him to my friends. Then I got the girl.”
It was like a heart-stopping scene from a movie.
The kids’ mother was scared to death as she was watching Olivia and RJ from afar, thankfully, the high school freshmen were more than ready to save her kids.
“I couldn’t get down the hill fast enough,” Stephanie said. “There were other families at the top of the hill and we were all screaming. What was amazing to me was to see the boys immediately know how to form a human chain. I don’t know how they knew to do that. The whole thing is incredible.”
Because of their bravery, they managed to pull both kids out of danger. Stephanie and her husband couldn’t be more thankful for what the teens did.
They may be just some boys from high school, they’re young and told by their parents not to do a bunch of stuff, but that didn’t stop them from doing the right thing – to save lives.
Watch the video below to know more about this amazing story.
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