Teen Girl Dies While Saving Little Brother From Icy Lake

HILLSBORO, OH — The deaths of a 16-year-old girl who saved her brother’s life and a park ranger who tried to save her are the latest painful reminders to stay off the ice during the final weeks of winter.

The girl, later identified as Kearia R. Scott of Hillsboro, Ohio, according to the Times-Gazette newspaper, was with her 13-year-old brother on the ice at Rocky Fork Lake on Tuesday night when the two fell in.

Kearia saved the life of her younger brother, emergency personnel said, and died while doing so.

“After the fact, it turns out that she got him out before she succumbed,” Lt. Branden Jackman of the Paint Creek Joint EMS and Fire District told WCPO.

A final cause of Kearia’s death hasn’t been determined, but it appears to have been drowning, the Times-Gazette reported, citing Highland County, Ohio, Coroner Jeff Beery.

During a four-hour rescue effort to find Kearia’s body, Ohio Department of Natural Resources Officer Jason Lagore suffered a “medical emergency,” according to the WCPO report, and died at the hospital. Lagore had been an Ohio DNR employee for 15 years.

Kearia’s younger brother remains hospitalized at Highland District Hospital with hypothermia, according to WCPO.

There’s a simple way to prevent tragedies like this, Jackman told WCPO.

“Don’t go out on the ice,” he said. “It caused a very bad tragedy.”