Body camera video shows icy pond rescue of 2 girls
By: -----
Madras, OR - Two teenagers were rescued Wednesday evening after falling through thin ice at a pond near the Jefferson County Fairgrounds. The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office released body camera footage of the rescue.
Multiple agencies responded to the 911 call, made by someone nearby the pond who witnessed the 15- and 16-year-old girls fall through the ice. The girls were in the water for around 15 to 20 minutes before the sheriff's office arrived. Deputies say hypothermia had begun to set in.
Teams swam into the frozen water with a body board on a rope so that the kids could grab ahold of the board while others worked on shore to pull them in.
Deputy CJ Linden was one of the deputies in the water. He also works at the school and said he knows one of the teenagers.
"She was able to tell me her name and tell it to me accurately. She was able to recognize me, so she was coherent," Linden said.
The deputies were dressed in their typical uniforms, making the rescue harder.
"We had no idea how deep the water was. It was a lot deeper than we expected. We didn't know how thick the ice was. We don't know how cold the water is. We're not dressed adequately to enter the water," Linden said.
Linden advises kids to not play on ice during the winter since it's hard to know how thick it is.
He said the ice in this case was about two inches thick. Once the kids fell in, they were trying to tread water with large ice chunks wrapped around them, which made it harder to stay afloat.