AURORA, Ill. (CBS) — Police officers do and see a lot on patrol – but the efforts of some Aurora officers are leading many to call them true heroes this Thanksgiving Day.
As CBS 2’s Jermont Terry reported, the officers jumped into chilly waters the day before Thanksgiving to save a 9-year-old boy who had run out to get his football and ended up falling through the ice.
Around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, a 911 call sent officers to the Fox Pointe apartment complex in Aurora. The call was for a person drowning – a 9-year-old boy who had fallen into the water and couldn’t get out.
Officer Andrew Soderlund answered the call.
“We’re driving there,” Soderlund said. “You’re kind of playing that scenario through your head = what exactly are we going to see when you we there?”
Officer Soderlund and his partner jumped out and headed right to the pond – where the 9-year-old boy had fallen into the icy water.
Onlookers directed the officers in the boy’s direction. The child had fallen in trying to get his football – yet when the boy went on the frozen pond, the ice cracked.
By the time officers arrived, a woman who tried saving the boy was also stuck.
“They were pretty far out there – and obviously, they weren’t making any way of getting closer to the shore,” Soderlund said.
Officer Soderlund ran back to his squad to grab a rescue kit.
“I know I’m not an Olympic swimmer, so I knew that hey, I’m not going to be able to swim with the two other people in the water,” he said.
Soderlund pulled out the rope and tied a knot around his waist – then jumped in.
“That adrenaline dump that goes on in situation like that – I don’t remember the cold at all,” he said.
Yet the water was dangerously cold – and Soderlund quickly learned it was deep too.
“I originally started walking out, I was like, ‘Wow, this isn’t bad – I can stand up,’ and then it just dropped,” he said. “It felt like it was no bottom.”
When Officer Soderlund got out to the retention pond, the first thing he did was take off his bulletproof vest – because it would have weighed him down to the point where he could not have gotten to the woman and kid.
“I wanted to be as light as possible,” Soderlund said.
The mission was a success. Facebook video released by Aurora police showed officers in the water, and throwing out ropes on the shoreline, to rescue the boy and the woman.
But once everyone was out of the water, a chill hit Soderlund.
“One of my partners actually, he helped me unbutton my shirt because my fingers weren’t working,” Soderlund said.
The two officers who had been in the water, the woman, and the 9-year-old all went to the hospital to get checked out. Everyone was safe Thanksgiving night.
“I thought my son was not going to be here to see Thanksgiving,” the boy’s mother said in the Facebook video posted by police Thursday. “Somebody was out there to call 911.”
She thanked everyone who stepped in to call 911, and everyone who helped rescue the youngster.
But Soderlund said, “I don’t consider myself necessarily a hero.”
On Thursday, officers brought the boy a new football to play with on Thanksgiving.
