TRAVELERS REST, SC (WSPA/CNN) - A playdate took a dangerous turn Monday afternoon when two children fell into a freezing pond while sledding.
Neighbor Jessica Patterson called 911 when she heard two young girls screaming and saw them treading water.
Patterson said they tried to throw an extension cord across the ice for the girls to grab.
"We threw it out again but he didn't have the end of it, so the extension cord went sliding across,” Patterson said. “And that's when I was like, ‘Oh no, what we are we going to do now?'"
North Greenville firefighters Nolan Gravley and Dakota Matheney responded to the scene.
"They (the girls) had been in the water for a few minutes and in those temperatures, they were losing strength,” said Gravley “They weren't going to be able to hold on to the ice, we knew we had to hurry."
It was Matheney who threw a life-saving rope onto the ice.
"If we hadn't been so close to the station, the whole outcome could have been different," Matheney said.
As the fire fighters pulled the girls back to shore, a Greenville county deputy arrived and threw another rope for both girls to hold.
Everything came together just in time.
"I'm just glad everybody's okay, that's for sure," Patterson said.
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