In New Jersey, a group of teens jumped into action to rescue two children who fell into a frozen pond while sledding on Thursday.
Kiernan Foley, 14, was one of five teens who helped pull out 8-year-old Olivia Heid and her 4-year-old brother R.J. from the icy water after their sled crashed into a pond at Beacon Hill Country Club in the Atlantic Highlands.
Foley was joined by his four friends namely Drew Scalice, Joseph Dietrich, and Tyler Armagan, all 14, and 15-year-old Ryan Day.
During a video interview, Foley told children’s charity Kids Who Kare that the boys were “just at the right place in the right time, I guess.”
Foley and his friends were standing near the pond when they heard screaming.
“We heard this Dad yelling, ‘Hop off, hop off!'” Foley said in the Patch interview, which first reported the incident. “We turned around and see these kids coming down the hill. They were going backward.”
According to the Patch, Stephanie Irlbeck, and Rich Heid, the parents of the rescued children had been watching from the top of a hill when the siblings’ sled hit a patch of ice and careened over a snowy ridge before landing in the partially frozen pond.
Foley did not waste time and jumped into the water — which was only a few feet deep— and his friends formed a human chain and began pulling the children back to the land.
“Kiernan, I give him all the credits, he jumped right in there without any hesitation,” Day said. “All of us were a great team, we all tagged along and saved those kids.”
In a post on a Middletown, N.J., Facebook group, Irlbeck hailed the boys as heroes.
“Not only did they stop a potentially catastrophic situation they didn’t even want anything in return,” she said. “They were trying to calm both of my kids down, you can imagine how scared the (sic) they were. Thank you. THANK YOU for having such AMAZING KIDS.”
The teens remained humble during the video interview saying: “We hope anyone else would do the exact same thing that we did.”