Three youths rescued from icy pond in Bucks

Police and divers were called to a Chalfont neighborhood Sunday afternoon to rescue three youngsters who were playing on and broke through the ice of a frozen retention basin, about 20 feet out from the shore.

All three children fell into the frigid water, said Russ Leets, chief of operations for Chal-Brit Regional EMS, who was at the scene. Authorities initially thought there were four children in danger.

The three, two of them 13-year-olds, were transported to local hospitals. The age of the third child wasn't known.

At just after 2 p.m., two Chalfont Fire Co. engines and divers from the Bucks Dive Rescue Station 41, based in Point Pleasant, were sent to the Highlands in Chalfont, a housing development in the Central Bucks School District. The retention basin is near Simon Butler Elementary School.

"I suspect with warm weather, the ice was very thin," said a firehouse official, who declined to give his name.

"It's in the middle of the development, and all the storm drains go into the retention basin, which then runs into the Neshaminy Creek."

The boys, whom police officials declined to identify because of their ages, were taken to Abington Memorial Hospital and to Doylestown Hospital, where they were treated for hypothermia, Leets said.

"Evidently they all fell through the ice, but one was helped out by a bystander. The other two managed to climb up on a grate in the middle of the pond," Leets said.

Point Pleasant Fire Company Chief Scott Fleischer said the ice wasn't as thick as in previous winters, "but it was frozen over enough that it looks interesting if you're a kid."

Fleischer's divers swam out ahead of a rescue boat with life jackets for the two remaining boys.

"It was about four feet deep so we needed a boat, and the boys were soaking wet and really cold," he added.

After bringing the youngsters back by boat, emergency officials placed them in separate ambulances and dispatched them to hospitals. It's unclear whether all the parents had been notified.

Police in Chalfont said this was their first broken-ice rescue of the year - but predicted it wouldn't be their last.

"It's what boys do, especially teens," said Patrolman Parker Bullard with the New Britain Township Police. "Their brains don't know any better."

He added this warning: "Don't got out on the ice if you don't know how thick it is."