Yesterday afternoon an 11-year-old Long Island girl, Sarah Thalhammer, chased after her neighbor's dog—a poodle-Maltese mix named Ace Ventura—who was running across the partially frozen Great South Bay. (There are conflicting reports that she was being pulled by him while walking the dog for her neighbor). She fell through the thin ice at about 30-feet out, and recalls, "I was screaming, the water was up to my neck."
The NY Post reports that officer Matthew DeMatteo was the first to arrive on the scene (after a nearby resident called 911), and says he crawled on his stomach to reach the girl and pull her out. The effort landed him up to his waist in the ice water, but he had backup in the form of firefighter Chris Gonzalez, who threw them a rope so they could be pulled out.
The dog, weighing in at just 15 lbs (to Sarah's 72), never fell through the ice and is doing just fine. Sarah's mother told Newsday, "I didn't think the dog had such strength to pull her on the ice and almost kill her."
DeMatteo notes, “It was close, but it had a happy ending. I was nervous... but I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. When you see her in the water, you’re going to do whatever you can to help her.” At a press conference yesterday Thalhammer said she is fine, but her hands "are still all tingly."
This may be a good time to re-read the NYC Parks Department's ice safety rules, where they put "Never go on frozen waters" in the #1 slot.
