Ballantyne – Charlotte Fire Department firefighters use throw ropes and ladders on the ice of the pond to try to reach the two men who had broken through the ice.
The two men grabbed one of the lines and were pulled to shore by the firefighters.
A walk on thin ice led to a rescue Tuesday afternoon in the Ballantyne area, where Charlotte firefighters and two civilians teamed to save a girl from near-freezing water.
Fire officials and a spokeswoman from Medic, the county’s emergency medical service, say the series of events began about 4 p.m., when a 9-year-old girl apparently tried walking on the ice that had formed atop a pond at the Ballantyne Post apartments.
But ice that forms on ponds in the Charlotte area rarely is more than an inch or two thick, and such was the case Tuesday.
The girl chased a tennis ball that had rolled onto the ice. She got about 10 to 15 feet from shore when the ice gave way, and she fell in. The girl started calling for help, and a man standing nearby went to save her. He also fell through the ice but began pulling the girl toward shore — while yelling for help himself.
A second man joined the rescue effort, taking off his coat and getting into the water. The second man, identified by WCNC-TV, the Observer’s news partner, as Mark McCullagh, helped the other man push the girl toward shore.
About that time, Charlotte firefighters arrived. They threw rescue lines into the water and pulled the three to shore.
McCullagh said he moved to North Carolina several months ago from Michigan and had experience around frozen lakes.
“I didn’t expect to see ice here in Charlotte when I moved here in August,” he told WCNC. “I’m just glad that two people were there to help the little girl.”
The girl and the two men were treated by doctors for exposure to the cold water. But none suffered serious injuries.
Reporter Steve Lyttle. Scoop Network News Partner, Charlotte Observer.
