Slow breaths, slow calming breaths. This was what we all were doing while we were sitting on the snow covered grass, trying to focus on what could have happened just seconds before, on that cold day. We could have died; we could have never made it out and frozen to death.
It
had started off as a fun filled day. We were in middle school and it was the
middle of February. That winter had been exceptionally cold that year and all
of the lakes and creeks had frozen over. My sister and I had gone to my friend
Amber’s house for a sleep over.
"Where are your parents?" I asked
"My mom is at work and my dad is sleeping" she replied.
We
did not want parents watching us anyway and started playing that we had broken
legs. We had found some old crutches of her mom’s that she had used because of
a hurt hip, but no longer needed. We were in that stage of some middle school
kids lives when they play a form of house, but it was a more “grown-up” version
of it. Amber had always been a fan of these kind of games and she was good at
being creative and coming up with ideas to incorporate into the role playing.
This specific time, we were playing that we were all sisters and each of us had
a broken leg. We decided to go back to the trails behind her house and play
that we were lost in the woods. Amber’s brother Daniel also came along with
their dog, he was a very outdoorsy type of person, always doing something
outside, and just came along for the fun of it.
We
did not think about it at the time, but it probably would have been wise to
leave a note or wake her dad and tell him where we were going, in case anything
happened to us.
They
have a small lake back next to their woods where they go fishing and swimming
at in the summer. It was currently frozen over though because it had gotten to
below 0 a couple of days before. We were not the brightest of middle-schoolers,
and we thought it would be fun to play that we had to cross the lake, and there
was no other way. We checked the lake by trying to break it with our crutches
and when they didn’t break the ice and our weight seemed to hold, all of us
girls went out and started crossing the lake. When we got to about the middle
though, we heard Daniel yelling their dogs name, “Dakota!”. We looked over to
see what he was yelling about and saw Dakota in the freezing cold water trying
to escape. Daniel had thrown her a ball out on the lake over where a whole
bunch of cattails were sticking out of it. They must have made it so the ice
couldn’t freeze over as well as the other part of the lake, because she had
broken through.
Amanda
was the first to rush over to try to help their dog. She dropped her crutches
and raced over to Dakota. The ice broke as soon as she got close though and it
sent her into the cold depths as well. Amber and I soon followed her. We were
all three then scrabbling about, trying to get out of the freezing water. Every
time we got to the sides though, the ice would break more, making it so we
would just go into the water again. I thought we would never get out, and our
coats and winter boots were weighing us down.
“Oh
no, we are going to drown!" Amber said.
Daniel,
farther back on the ice where it hadn’t broken yet, grabbed one of crutches we
had dropped and held it out for me to grab.
"Grab
on!" he shouted. I did and with him pulling, I managed to get on top of
the ice and out of the water. We continued to get Amanda and Amber out until we
were all out, though still wet and freezing.
We
had all lost almost all of our boots in the water and had to walk in bare feet
back to their house, shivering the whole way.
Exceptional story. You are a very good writer and the story kept me intrested.
ReplyDeleteThis is definitely a scary story! Falling into a frozen pond doesn't always have a happy ending and it's good to know you'll all got out safely. I hope the dog was okay because I notice you didn't specifically say whether she got out.
ReplyDeleteShe was, thankfully or else it would have been a huge waste lol! I pushed her out when I fell in next to her, they still have her today.
ReplyDelete