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Neighbors help man out of icy South Jordan pond

Posted at 2:43 PM, Dec 29, 2017
and last updated 2017-12-29 23:54:24-05

DAYBREAK – James Thompson, his son Mike, and his son’s friend were all home Friday morning when they noticed something outside their window.

“I’m not sure who even noticed him first,” Thompson said. “At some point someone said, ‘there’s a guy out on that ice.’”

That guy was a fisherman who decided to walk out on the ice at a nearby pond. With temperatures fluctuating recently, firefighters say conditions are poor. They say at least 4 inches of thickness are required to hold people up.

“We knew he was pushing his luck,” said the friend, James Crigler. “We were kind of joking at first, but once he fell in, we took it serious.”

The three men grabbed a ladder from the garage and ran across the street.

“Mike just hopped over the edge and we started a human chain trying to get him out of the water as quick as possible,” Crigler added.

Firefighters say the men did exactly the right thing.

“Don’t go out on the ice,” said South Jordan Fire Battalion Chief Clayton Miller. “Reach out with your arm if you can, or throw something out to them.”

By the time firefighters arrived, the three men had already pulled the fisherman to safety. They say he was tempted to go back out on a different part of the lake.

“We were like, ‘you probably shouldn’t go back out there,” Crigler said.