Two bystanders who rescued a 12-year-old boy after he fell through ice in a pond at Hillcrest Park in Lansdowne on Jan. 25 were recognized for their efforts Monday in Towson by the Baltimore County Council.
Josh Burns, 25, of Glen Burnie and Craig Coleman, 28, of Lansdowne, worked together to pull Chive Omar Benjamin, 12, of Columbia, from the frigid, murky water that Sunday in January.
"These two men pulled the child from the frozen lake, performed CPR and revived this boy until fire emergency personnel arrived saving this child's life. These men are really what it's all about," First District Councilman Tom Quirk said. "They risked their own lives to save another person's."
"We just want to say thank you for your efforts and your bravery," Quirk said during the council session on March 16.
Chive was playing with three friends on the ice when they fell into the muddy water. Two of the boys got out of the water themselves, Burns said. The fourth, Kyron Aikens, 13, died after being pulled from the water by members of the Arbutus Volunteer Fire Department, according to Baltimore County police.
Burns said he was on his way to help his in-laws with a home renovation in Lansdowne and had stopped by the pond because he was running early and had some extra time.
"That's when I noticed the kids playing on the ice," said Burns, a pipe fitter, who served in the Marine Corps. "I watched them for a second, and I started hollering at them to get back toward the shore. That's when they began falling in one by one."
Burns said he ran to the side of the pond where the boys were, but they were all under water at that point. Two swam to the shore themselves, Burns said. He helped one of the boys up the hill, then told him to call 911, he said.
That's when he spotted Coleman coming around the corner. Coleman had been walking his dog, Indiana Jones, near the lake, past the track at Lansdowne High School.
"I heard some guy shouting and I didn't pay any attention to it at first," said Coleman, a student at the University of Baltimore, who served in the Army. When he heard the voices getting louder and more frantic, he turned to find out what was happening.
Coleman said he saw Burns climbing out of the water, and two young boys, soaking wet from falling in the water, sitting on the shore. "As he's getting out of the water, he's still shouting," Coleman said. "He kept saying, 'They're in there! They're in there!'"
He said he was familiar with the lake after growing up around it.
"I knew how deep it was," he said.
Coleman said he swam around feeling in the water for one of the boys, but couldn't find anyone in the water. He was about to swim back to the shore when he felt something touch his left foot at the bottom of the lake.
"I reached down in the water and grabbed [him]," he said.
Coleman began swimming back to the shore with the boy and Burns swam out to help pull the boy back to the shore, both men said.
Burns said he shouted at the two boys to help them get Chive up onto the bank, so they could, "get him on a flat surface to perform [cardiopulmonary resuscitation] CPR."
Coleman, who had learned CPR just four days before, began performing the lifesaving technique on Chive with Burns' help.
"[Burns] turned his head to the side, and I remember thinking to myself — this guy must have some kind of CPR training," Coleman said.
Burns, a father of three, said while they were trying to resuscitate Chive, he kept thinking about Kyron, who was still submerged in the water.
"During that whole process, I was thinking about the other kid that was submerged that we didn't get to," Burns said. "I kept trying to psych myself out — my body was cold. I wanted to go back in and get him."
Coleman said, "I heard the ambulance sound — it was like the most beautiful sound I've ever heard."
Twenty-five career and volunteer firefighters units responded to the scene, dispatched at 1:28 p.m., according a statement issued by police Jan. 26. They pulled Kyron, who was in cardiac arrest, from the icy water at 2:47 p.m. police said.
Chive has since been discharged from the Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he had been hospitalized in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, said Ekaterina Pesheva, a Johns Hopkins spokeswoman.