​Fox Lake Firefighters Rescue Boy From Frozen Pond

FOX LAKE, IL — A Fox Lake teenager was safe and in stable condition after being rescued from a frozen pond he fell through Wednesday morning.

Fox Lake Fire Protection District Batallion Chief Brent Connelly told Patch authorities were called at 10:51 a.m. after someone saw the boy, 13, fall through the ice on a pond-like body of water in the 200 block of South Route 59.

When firefighters and EMS workers arrived, the boy was standing on the bottom of the pond with water up to his chest, Connelly said. The boy was holding to an ice shelf but unable to climb back up.

Firefighters threw a throw-and-go pack — a rope with a bag on the end — out to the boy, but he was unable to grab the rope to be rescued. So, Connelly said, a firefighter donned a diver suit, busted the ice and waded out to the boy.

The battalion chief said the boy was evaluated for hypothermia and given blankets and warm clothes. He was ten released to his mother, who lives nearby, to rest and recover.

"Our attitude is no ice is safe ice," Connelly told Patch. "Most fisherman and people who do winter sports usually are cognizant of different thicknesses of ice that are supposed to be safe. However, depending on ice and the way it froze and thawed, ice that looks safe could also be very poor ice and unsafe."