[Music] a Sunday afternoon turns terrifying for two young Brothers when a frozen pond collapses beneath them as they struggle for their lives Rescuers race to the scene time is very important in a situation like this I knew we had to get him quickly but with each minute in the frigid water emergency Personnel fear for their survival I wasn't coming out until we found him fighting hi hypothermia doctors attempt to revive the boys these kids looked dead they felt dead and they were cold and stiff to save two innocent lives Rescuers find themselves walking on thin ice [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] December 10th 1995 in Warwick Rhode Island temperatures had fallen into the low 20s for three straight days transforming the landscape at a neighborhood Pond snow covered a deceptively thin sheet of ice it would take three more days at 20° until the pond would be safe to walk on before then it would present a danger too many parents have had to face the second leading cause of death for children under 15 drowning and dozens of children live nearby the pond was two blocks from the home of 9-year-old Tommy martini and his younger brother Christopher they plan to spend the rest of the Sunday afternoon outdoors with their friend Eddie [Applause] [Music] konian Tracy Martini warned her son Christopher not to go near the pond okay you're clear on she knew from her experience the ice was still too thin that fun Christopher promised to stay away from the pond his brother promised to look after [Music] him their play soon turned into a snowball fight [Music] Christopher took off [Music] running you're never going to get me his path led him to the pond it seemed solid enough but water does not freeze at a uniform rate frequently Ice's thinnest at the center of a pond when nothing happened Christopher grew Bolder Christopher dared them to come out with each jump he weakened the ice beneath him are you scared the ice I no he refused their fleas to get off the fond Eddie ran to tell his mother suddenly the ice cracked open plunging Christopher into the frigid water the cold was so intense it took his Breath Away Eddie ran home as Tommy tried to get to his brother okay you okay you all right come on here Christopher struggled to climb out but he was unable to grasp The Edge the ice kept breaking [Music] off [Music] Tomy Tommy help help [Music] [Music] Eddie told his mother that Christopher had fallen through the ice she called 911 in the 34° water Christopher's small body cooled rapidly just when he needed the most his muscles became stiff and his reflexes [Music] sluggish Tommy was seven lb heavier than his brother CH come on he was aware the ice may not hold [Music] him but it was a chance he had to take Christopher needed his help [Music] [Applause] Warwick Fire Station 8 was less than a mile and a half away at 3:05 that afternoon A call came in that someone had fallen through the ice firefighter Michael menen was on the first rescue truck out of the station as soon as the call came in you know my hot was racing most of the calls we go on car accidents a lot of medical runs um fires um very rarely do we get an ice rescue he hoped his training in ice rescues would make a difference that day Eddie's mom gave Tracy Martini the bad news [Music] quick Christopher had been in the icy Pond for less than 2 minutes yet could barely keep his head above water his heart and respiratory rates continued to slow Tommy reached out stretching his hand as far as he could across the Gap that separated him from his [Music] brother please grab my hand it wasn't enough [Music] the Ice [Music] [Applause] [Music] broke Tommy tried to keep Christopher afloat but as his body reacted to the cold he found it difficult to stay above the water himself neighbors responded to the boy's frantic cries you guys are all right They too had no way of reaching them without falling through the ice gradually Tommy's and Christopher's cries grew weaker the intense cold of the water was taking its toll here hang on the two young boys had less than 5 minutes before they were unconscious [Music] come in the back of the truck menen put on a rubber exposure suit it would Shield him from the cold and keep him buoyant in the water calls from panicked neighbors continued to pour in time is very important in a situation like this I knew we had to get him [Music] [Applause] quickly we turned the corner to the the street there were people on the shore waving their arms the adrenaline just started [Applause] flowing at 3:15 menen and his team are arrived at the [Music] pond come on guys Rescuers quickly learned from Neighbors that two boys had fallen in paramedic Anthony melow it was not until the first units arrived on the scene that we knew exactly how serious it was we realized there may be another child submerged as firefight Moen moved towards the hole he was uncertain what happened to the two brothers and I had to get on to my hands and knees and kind of crawl out there to kind of spread disperse my weight across the ice so I wouldn't fall [Music] through I can see two gloves that were grabbing onto the ice as if they were holding on and I thought there's the victim the ice just broke up I I fell through and I saw that the the gloves weren't attached to anybody uh they were attached to the ice and that was it menen realized that both boys were submerged under the ice this posed a problem because the exposure suit had limited capabilities the suits are designed for going out and getting somebody who's floating on the water but um not under the water in order to get below the surface menen propelled himself out of the water and then using his arms he tried to force himself down it was a murky Pond it was probably like a one to twoot visibility tops I was pushing down the water and just trying to feel for something but the exposure suit was too buoyant he needed to go deeper he had to figure out how and fast on board the ambulance Lieutenant Richard bellance prepared to treat what he knew would be severe hypothermia a body temperature below 95° f on the way to the Run I'd set the heat up to a high temperature prepare blankets IV fluids putting them in front of a heat vent to warm them up a little bit cuz hypothermia is going to be the biggest [Music] problem somewhere in the dark depths Beyond mowen's reach the boys were drowning in the frigid water they had been submerged for almost 15 minutes the water just starts funneling down your suit and you lose your buoyancy which which helped it helped you go down deeper into the water where you can almost touch [Music] bottom I was in a panic situation where I knew we had to get him quickly using all his strength R menen surged up and Dove down into the water for the brief moment he touched bottom he kicked around hoping his feet would touch the boys his buyant suit then folded him to the surface where he repeated the process again and again after 10 minutes he was exhausted I had no clue how long I was in in the water I mean the time was frozen I I just I would have stayed out there until someone yanked me out of the water I I someone was going to have to physically get me and take me out of the water cuz I wasn't coming out until we found him Rescuers knew the danger menen faced every second he was in the water paramedic Rick bellance when you're dealing with the ice rescue you're putting The Rescuers in the same environment of as the victims and and anything goes wrong with their equipment they become a victim as opposed to a rescuer at the Pawn's Edge neighbors were helpless to assist Rescuers they could only watch and [Music] wait oh my with every passing second Tracy Martini's fear for her sons grew [Music] she knew that unless Rescuers found them soon there was little chance they would be found [Music] alive in Warwick Rhode Island a sudden drop in the temperature created a dangerous situation on a neighborhood Pond two Brothers had fallen through the deceptively thin ice after a few minutes in the freezing water they could Struggle No More the fire department responded but found that the boys had sunk to the bottom right here right here back right here as neighbors gathered to watch and wait The Rescuers struggled to reach the children [Music] unable to dive due to the buoyancy of his exposure suit firefighter Michael menen kept probing The Depths with his feet the boy's mother waited anxiously for any news her sons had been underwater for close to 20 [Music] minutes to help with the rescue firefighter Michael Clark put on an exposure suit he knew menen was going to need some help I jacked knife down and I um I kicked something which felt like a TI tube and I said it's got to be him I worked him up to my arms I got a good grasp on him I got him I got him when I found the victim he just was lifeless Moen had f found 9-year-old [Music] Tommy as soon as I said I've got him there was 20 guys on the line and they pull me in the Rope snapped and now um I'm in the water with this victim and no means of getting in the [Music] shore when the line broke Clark knew he had to do something it was just devastating to see that happen because now I'm looking at not two victims but uh two people out there that are [Music] helpless I know Mike was okay cuz he had the suit on but uh Tommy definitely needed serious medical [Music] attention with his Lifeline securely attached Clark scrambled across the ice and grabbed t the instant he was safely in Clark's arms the rescue team hauled them both in [Applause] [Music] [Music] but until you actually have a lifeless 9-year-old boy in your arms not breathing no pulse you just I can't explain what that feels [Music] like Tommy wasn't breathing deathly pale he showed no response his pupils were fixed and he had no pulse with Christopher still in the water the crisis took on proportion is much greater than anyone first realized paramedic Charles Donan they realize the intensity of what we had I think they started calling for more apparatus more rescues we just needed more manpower because we had to get a lot of guys out there on the [Music] ice even as Moen was joined by two other Rescuers the hold in the ice was widening making it more difficult to tell Where The Boys had fallen [Music] in anything 7-year-old Christopher had been in the water for 25 [Music] minutes donalan knew they needed to warm up Tommy quickly first thing you want to do is stop the cold you want to increase heat our truck was quite warm at the time cuz we had cranked the heat up so immediately we're starting to warm the body up donalan inserted an endot tral tube and began to ventilate Tommy's lungs by pumping the pond water out the 9-year-old's veins were small and the cold had left them constricted but Rick bellance managed to start an IV the paramedics detected some heart activity but felt no pulse in his extremities Tommy was alive but barely Eddie konian ran for help when Christopher fell through the ice now he could only hope for the best I didn't know what to do it was terrifying I don't think I've ever been so scared [Music] bellance called Hasbro Children's Hospital 5 miles away in Providence he wanted to inject epinephrine into Tommy's IV line in an effort to reestablish a pulse boy come on Tommy what's your ETA Dr slim sooner chief resident in emergency medicine gave his consent for the drugs all right we'll see you in 15 minutes the trauma room will be ready all right everybody gather around he then readied his staff to receive the young victim I've been involved in these type of recitations but only in adult patients at that time I hadn't seen many children who were hypothermic and when there are multiple uh kids involved we knew this was going to take a lot of resources clear the paramedics were forcing air into M's [Music] lungs into a saline IV they injected medications to stimulate his heart but the cardiac monitor continued to show a rhythmic [Music] activity the muscles of Tommy's heart were being stimulated but his heart was not beating come on Tommy paramedic Charles dlin kids they they affect every guy in the job there's no doubt about that and if you have your own child that age with one son on the way to the hospital and another still missing Tracy Martini was [Music] inconsolable they had looked everywhere and still there was no sign of Christopher to Michael menen who had been searching the longest it seemed like a controlled Panic it felt like I was in the water for 2 hours and we couldn't find him um I know it wasn't 2 hours but when you're looking around and you just have no clue we we had no clue where to look for him when The Rescuers peered down into the water all they could see was Darkness I got this the only sense they had left was their sense of [Music] touch Christopher could be just a few inches from their grasp but they had no way of knowing [Applause] [Music] it more rescue teams arrived in exposure suits ready to lend a hand as the ice continued to break off and the hole continued to widen Rescuers turned a traditionally oneman rescue operation into a team [Music] effort to avoid confusion menen divided the hole into a grid and restricted each rescuer to their own area when we were all out in the water we were talking well why don't we try a search pattern across the area go back across that Grid in the area where we thought we could find him we're just like yelling to each other giving hand signals try this do that you know it it was organized chaos The Rescuers were frustrated nothing seemed to be working Christopher had been submerged under the ice for over 25 minutes and they still had no way of reaching [Music] him come on a frozen pond became a lethal trap for two young boys they were brothers one risking his life to save the other Rescuers from the Warwick Rhode Island fire department had pulled one boy from The Frigid Waters but he showed no signs of [Music] Life the emergency team had to get Tommy Martini breathing again get his heart started and begin warming his body despite the Grim Outlook paramedic Richard bellance kept trying to revive the 9-year-old at the monitor I don't recall any time when we actually gave up hope thinking that he's not going to make that we just had it in our our mind that we were going to continue our treatment and bring this patient to a hospital emergency room where the doctors would do their best to continue treatment and hopefully some miracle would happen and he'd be revived Tommy's brother Christopher remained lost somewhere at the bottom of the [Music] pond The Rescuers were hampered by their exposure suits which kept them floating on the surface they had to find some way of probing deeper a fir truck arrived with a possible solution doing a rescue pole with a loop on the [Music] end got the pole would allow Michael mowen to reach the bottom of the pond he hoped to snag Christopher's arm or leg in the loop and pull him to the [Music] surface but first he had to find him [Music] [Music] over to the [Music] stretch at Hasbro Children's Hospital attending physician Dr Mark hero quickly assessed Tommy's condition his cardiac monitor showed some cardiac activity at a slow rate but there was no pulse so basically he had no circulation when he arrived we're going to need the Bear Hugger if we can get a bear hugger in here we need to get a PO temperature on Tommy Tommy's temperature was 87 more than 11° below normal to get Tommy's circulation going the team covered him with a special blanket inflated with heated air okay let's hold CPR for a second let's take a look at what his rhythm is the cardiac monitor showed Tommy's heart wasn't Contracting Dr Linda Snelling chief of Pediatrics was troubled by his condition if a child arrives with a heartbeat their outcome is likely to be relatively good not guaranteed but if a child arise without a heartbeat the chances that they're going to leave the hospital alive are small and the chances that if they do live they're going to lead a normal life are minuscule I don't have a pul yeah it definitely looks like paa go ahead and restart CPR let's go ahead and give him 01 per kilo of EP in an effort to start a rhythm the team injected Tommy with drugs to stimulate his heart any parents with him or family members with him they continue giving him warm oxygen and warm IV fluids to heat beat his body from the inside [Music] out as Rescuers continued to search for Christopher they had one hope for his survival the mamalian diving reflex this automatic body response slows the heart down and keeps blood flowing to the body's most vital organs the lungs and brain the reflex is strongest in Young children the cold water is beneficial because it slows down the metabolic processes it slows down the requirement for oxygen on the part of the brain it slows down a lot of the organs and that slows down the damage that can be done by lack of oxygen firefighter Michael mowen swept the area pushing the rescue pole deeper and wider hoping it would reach far enough to hook Christopher [Music] but Moen was tiring he had been searching for over 20 minutes all right let's take another look still no pul looks like we might have some fine DF here we go Tommy's heart had still not started to beat he required even more medications typically most of the drugs and electrical therapy we use to restore the heart to a normal beat would not function uh because the patient is so cold so you have to be extremely careful with these children to do everything gently and not irritate their hearts that looks like it might be VF yeah let's prepare to shock him finally Tommy's body had rewarmed enough to try starting his heart using a defibrillator everybody clear please clear back everybody clear okay it didn't work re check here still don't have anything okay let's resume CPR keep bag in01 per kilo with all his strength menen swept the pole along the [Music] bottom he hit something not sure what it was he moved closer looking good I got him I got him the young boy had been under the water for almost 30 minutes menen immediately began to perform CPR on the lifeless boy Tracy Martini watched as her youngest son was taken out of the water and pulled [Music] asore Christopher showed no signs of Life The Paramedics wanted to continue CPR but Anthony Melo knew they had to warm the body as quickly as possible at this point we're just trying to get him to the truck we know what we have to do we can't stop to do it right there we need to get him in the truck he was extremely blue and and lifeless he was like a ragd doll at that point we initiated basic life support we started CPR we started ventilating doing chest compressions [Music] we did our best to get his clothes off as quickly as possible we cut every Stitch of clothing off of him and we grabbed a towels and dried him off to try to prevent any further cooling of the [Music] body we were able to quickly put an IV in which was a major feat taken into account this child is extremely cold and their veins have just closed off Christopher was clinically dead we got he was still not breathing and he had no pulse I was controlling meds IV and EKG the child remained Flatline the entire way to the hospital as they approached the hospital Melo saw on the monitor what he thought might be heartbeats there were very few and very INF frequent and I actually thought they were from the bumps in the road over now Melo sens Christopher's heart was trying to beat on its own but the bumpy road was interfering with the monitor once we stopped we could see it we realized that he had a heartbeat you know it was not enough to sustain life it was an encouraging sign but for the team struggling to revive the two brothers it was only the [Applause] beginning Rescuers from the Warwick Road Island fire department had pulled Two Brothers From a frozen pond neither of the boys showed any signs of life but the emergency team refused to give up at Hasbro Children's Hospital in Providence doctors inserted a catheter into Tommy Martini's bladder flushing his body with warm saline solution in an effort to raise his body temperature let circulate that as they kept trying to restart the boy's heart the ER staff prepared for the arrival of Tommy's 7-year-old brother Christopher Dr slim sooner chief resident in emergency medicine now we have two patients who who appear to be dead who are being resuscitated in in this room it's hectic there are multiple nurses Physicians there are teams working on each patient tensions are high you can just doly Christopher was severely hypothermic going go with 30 kilos for his weight his core temperature was 85° 13° below nor doctors immediately administered medications to stimulate his heart warm fluid let's make sure all the team then tried to warm Christopher by irrigating his stomach and bladder with warm fluids French Foy in you want going to still warm fluids in in one sense we knew that the medications we were giving him were not going to work because they don't work uh in when the body is that cold um on the other hand we had to do something after the E naturam we're going to go with Britian can I have 5 Mig per kilo brilian in until we get it's got another line in still no pul what we done to rearm him let's let's check his uh rhythm again what we have for rhythm okay we're going to shock B FIB the team tried to shock Christopher's heart into beating using a defibrillator but it wasn't working we Christopher had not sufficiently rewarmed to allow his heart to begin beating [Music] PR down sound equal Contin CPR to increase his core temperature Doctors Covered him with a blanket filled with heated air should you get the b car yet attending physician Dr Mark Shapiro let's go for one more round of you're in the back of your mind thinking boy and I hope I can resuscitate these children and if they both die how devastated the family is going to be I think it adds even more more emotion to an already emotionally charged [Music] situation when Tracy Martini arrived at the ER all she wanted to hear was that Tommy and Christopher were alive need to know I need to know and recovering all the staff could tell her is they were doing everything they could the ER team felt there was hope because the boys had drowned in cold water Dr Monica Kleinman a physician in Pediatric Intensive Care this was different than other resuscitations that we had done and certainly that was on the minds of everybody in that emergency department who continue to resuscitate these kids far longer than we would resuscitate someone who had a normal body temperature or who had drowned under very different circumstances doctors continued to rewarm Christopher got a 28 French test tube they placed tubes in his chest and filled them with warm water this would heat the body From the Inside Out by raising the temperature of the blood nearest his heart and lungs once Tommy's temperature had reached 92° his heart began to beat regularly you have a I'm not sure it's faint but I think we do have a pulse here okay we're going to get up there where they can take care of an hour after he had fallen through the ice he was moved to the Intensive Care Unit breath sounds okay continue CPR Christopher's heart repeatedly started and stop stop CPR let's look at the Rhythm doctors had to establish a steady Rhythm okay monitor check pulse no pulse still about the same R still be FIB 80 Jews please charging to 80 clear all charged finally they detected a weak pulse both boys now had heartbeats they were by no means stable though um stable only in that we didn't have to do CPR anymore they still weren't warm enough uh cuz their hearts were still irritable from the cold temperature and they could have gone back into a bad Rhythm three hours after Christopher's arrival at the hospital Dr Monica Kleinman received him in the Intensive Care Unit both boys were in critical condition and placed on respirators their lungs were swollen and stiff incapable of taking in much oxygen fluid was leaking into Christopher's lungs a side effect of his near drowning doctors were forced to periodically disconnect him from the ventilator and drain the liquid the fluid that they had coming from their lungs was very bloody and so we were using very high settings on the ventilators to essentially hold back the fluid and try to keep the lung sacks open enough that some oxygen could be exchanged so the risk is that you'll essentially pop one of the lungs and on the settings that we were using that certainly seemed likely Dr kinman was finally able to inform Tracy Martini of Tommy and Christopher's condition she told her that although they were still unconscious their body temperature had returned to normal and their circulation had improved Kleinman cautioned Tracy that they faced a long and difficult road to recovery we're very good at resuscitating but if damage has already been done we can't undo it we were hopeful though that because of the hypothermia that their brains have been protected and there was no way we could tell until we waited to see what happened Tracy was finally allowed to see her [Music] sons Tommy had the least amount of lung damage and began to show signs of improvement during the [Music] night Christopher was the doctor's greatest concern Christopher uh continued to have problems with his heart was very weak and needed a a lot of extra support and uh his kidneys failed and he needed to be put on dialysis and it felt like a a daunting task to try to stabilize him because basically every body system was failing at some point if Christopher failed to improve his mother would have to decide whether to discontinue life support a Rhode Island Medical Team brought two young boys back from the dead okay they were brothers one risking his life to save the other after he had fallen through a frozen [Music] pond emergency teams managed to resuscitate the boys but they remained comos struggling for life no one knew when if ever they might recover their mother kept a vigil by their beds hoping her voice would help bring them back the boy's classmates stayed after school to make blue bows expressing their sympathy Tommy the children tied two love knots in each bow to represent Tommy and Christopher all right get the PTA sold the bows to raise funds for the family [Music] Tommy's class recorded Christmas carols and personal messages hoping it would help him [Music] recover trying to wake Tommy from his coma Tracy played get well wishes his classmates had recorded I miss you and I hope that you Dr Linda Snelling I think um having devoted family members there there were talking to these children all the time wake up you know don't leave me I that has to help whether you think a child's conscious or not that has to help in the Next Room Tommy's brother was losing his Battle For [Music] Life Dr Snelling told Tracy to prepare for the worst we really never got to see if he could wake up he he was never to a point where where we could even find out because his body had been so ravaged that we we couldn't get his organs to recover Christopher had languished 8 days in a coma when doctors recommended they stopped treatment no mother wants to think that their child's not going to survive but it was getting to the point where it wasn't going to matter whether we stopped treatment or not it was it was going to be taken out of our hands Tracy made the decision to end the treatments that were keeping her seven-year-old boy alive she stayed with Christopher as he breathed on his own for 40 minutes and then passed everyone felt a sense of defeat and a tremendous sense of loss and this had been something that uh you know people had been working and putting their Heart and souls into for 8 days and uh you know we felt like we knew this child we knew this family and everybody wanted him to get better plus we knew his brother was recovering and so it just you know it was it just felt unfair as Tommy's condition stabilized doctors moved him out of intensive care Tracy kept watching and waiting for him to recover NSE nurse and then on December 19th Tommy started to awake from his cor warm do when Tommy started to move and and started to come around everybody regardless of who they were caring for that day everyone was thrilled I mean it was a it was just it was uh you know ecstatic that he was moving one of Tommy's first visitors was his best friend Eddie [Music] konian when Tommy woke up uh he couldn't do much he had you know he couldn't talk could barely move but I remember when I first walked in the door and he had a huge smile on his face when he saw me and I was just glad he was alive 2 months after he fell through the ice Tommy Martini was released from the rehabilitation center although his speech was halting and he needed physical therapy to learn to walk again he had survived today Tommy is attending high school and working a part-time job Rescuers will never forget the significance of that day those children were pulled from that pond lifeless they were dead that is a true miracle that that we were able to revive one of those kids and he's still walking around today to help prevent such tragedies in the future the Warwick fire department organized a scuba diving team they also started an outreach program aimed at teaching children ice safety [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]