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A Utah sheriff’s deputy dived into action when an 8-year-old boy fell into a frozen pond in New Harmony chasing after his family dog.
Washington County Sheriff’s Sgt. Aaron Thompson showed up to the scene on Christmas Day after the young boy’s friend called 911 for help late that afternoon, authorities told NBC News.
Thompson said a woman on shore saw the boy's hands up minutes before he showed up and pointed him in the kid's general direction. He then walked out onto the frozen pond and tried to punch his way through the ice.
He said "the ice got thicker, and I couldn't break it with my arms and my fists... so I started to jump up and down on it using my body weight."
Eventually the ice gave way.
Thompson then dove into the water and searched for the boy. He searched the entire area of broken ice that he said was “quite large,” hoping to find the boy, but it turned out that the boy was trapped beneath the unbroken ice.
The sheriff's deputy kept the faith.
He explained that there were reeds on the bottom which told him the boy’s body would be sitting on top “somewhere between there and the ice.”
"Using my tippytoes, floating in the water up to about my neck ... I knew I had a real good chance … [that] eventually I was going to bump into him," Thompson said.
He eventually found the boy, who he believed was in the water for about 30 minutes.
Thompson, a trained water rescuer, said he is optimistic that the boy will recover.
"The temperature of the water was a huge, huge factor," he said. "We're really hopeful for this individual."
Despite his heroic efforts, Thompson refuses to be called a hero.
"It's not me. It's us," he said, praising the emergency responders and the witness that helped him find the boy.
"That's the real story here," said Thompson. "I was just the one that went out into the water."
The sheriff’s officer suffered cuts, bruises and symptoms of hypothermia from the rescue, though he bounced back quickly and was back to work on Tuesday.
For more, check out the NBC News report below.
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