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A young Ohio boy is alive after being rescued from a frozen pond by his neighbor.
According to FOX 19, a 10-year-old boy was pulled from a pond located behind the Palmera Apartments in Deerfield Township on Monday (February 14) by his neighbor, Austin Hayes.
Hayes told the news outlet that he was in the right place at the right time. He said he got home around 4:30 p.m. and his Golden Retriever was begging to go outside, so her let her out.
"As soon as I opened the door, I saw the young kid struggling to get out of the ice," Hayes said. "Clearly, [he] walked across and fell through up to his neck struggling. He kept screaming, 'I'm getting ready to pass out! I'm tired!'"
Hayes said he saw the boy's sister standing by the pond and rushed to help him.
"I had a daughter about a year ago, and maybe that paternal instinct kicked in, and I saw it and all I could think about is what could I grab to get him out," Hayes added.
Another neighbor threw Hayes a tow strap to use to get the boy out, but it wasn't long enough. So, he decided to make his way onto the ice.
"When It's not frozen, you can see there at the edge that it's not too deep, so I wasn't that concerned. If I could go in a little bit, if it would have broke, I would have had wet shoes, worst-case scenario," Hayes noted. "I just knew I needed about an extra foot of length, and we were able to get it, and he was able to get it around his wrist, and we got him out."
Hayes says his dog, Red, knew something was going on outside.
"She knew something because she wanted to go outside, and afterward, I let her back out and she didn't go to the bathroom. So, something was going on."
The young boy was taken to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center by EMS and is expected to be ok, Deerfield Township Fire Chief Chris Eisele said.