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Edited on Sun Mar-19-06 09:48 PM by notadmblnd
I told him it was a stupid thing to do because he could have easily have been a victim, and that he did everything wrong,... I told him he should have used the phone in his pocket and called for help, and how lucky he was that there wasn't 4 boys dead...but still, I am so proud of him.
After dinner James (he's 12)had asked if it was ok to go for a bike ride so he and Cedrick took off about 5. James said they were arguing about either going up to the university or over to Civic Center Park when they saw three boys they knew over on the pond by the library so they decided to go over there.
He told me they were standing on the bank telling the boys how stupid they were for being out on the ice (two had walked out to pick up a stick they had thrown out there) when the ice broke and one fell in . I guess the other boy realized what happened and walked back to the bank so James decided to go help the one in the water and fell through himself. He said he started to panic at first but after he realized the water was only chest high and he started feeling all warm and tingly, he decided it wasn't so bad so he grabbed the little kid and tried to put him back up on the ice but he kept falling back through.
Cedrick and the other boys went and got some branches and brought them back. According to James, one of the other boys brought a branch out to him and the ice started breaking and he started to fall in too. James said he let go of the one he had and pushed the other back up when Cedrick finally brought a really long branch and he was finally able to crawl out with the boy who had originally fell in.
After that the boys walked up the hill to the police station. James said that when they got to the lobby, there was no one around; the police station has a call phone outside the door and you have to pick up a phone to call for assistance, He said he couldn't talk (he was shivering so bad) so Cedrick had to press the button. James said it was funny because after Cedrick pushed the button a few times a voice came on and told him he might want to try and pick up the phone. He told that one of the boys was crying because he was afraid of getting in trouble and the other two tried to run away so Cedrick snatched them back and made them go in.
Once inside the police station, they told them what happened and dripped mud all over the floor (James was oddly amused about that little fact) he said they called the other boys parents but drove them home. I spoke with the officer when he got here and he assured me James wasn't in any trouble. He said he didn't really know what happened.. he just knew there were 5 wet boys and his captain told him to drive them home and that I had to go pick up his bike in front of the police station.
You know, I don't know if I'm going to survive this kid growing up. I don't even want to think about what could have happened. I drove past the pond.. you can see it from the road, it's probably a good 80-100 yards across. Those boys were insane to go out there. I could see where the ice was broken off in several spots.. they were a good 20-30 feet out there. Those boys don't know how lucky they are. It took a couple of hours to get James warmed up. He's got some scratches, bruises and a little frost bite on his fingertips but other than that he's seems ok. He said he didn't swallow any water but I told him to let me know if he has diarrhea tomorrow. The water isn't stagnant but there still could be some bacteria in it that could make him sick.
It scares me... getting this little glimpse of his character. I'm proud and amazed that he felt compelled to take action in the situation, yet scared to death that he let his instincts take over without thinking about it first. The only thing that seemed to bother him about the entire episode is that his cell phone is shot and he's not going to be able to live with out it the next couple of days.
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