THREE boys have tragically died after falling into a frozen lake in Solihull.
The boys, aged 11, 10 and eight, were rushed to hospital after being pulled from the water at Babbs Mill Park on Sunday, December 11.
The 10-year-old has been named locally as Jack Johnson and reports suggest he went onto the ice to save three boys he didn’t know – at the time of going to press this had not been confirmed nor had the boys identities.
A fourth boy, aged 6, remains in a critical condition in hospital.
A search and rescue operation at the Kingshurst park has been carried out as emergency services work to establish exactly what happened.
Although there are no reports of anyone else missing Richard Harris, Solihull Superintendent at West Midlands Police, said specialist teams would keep searching until they were 100 per cent certain no one else is in the water.
The community has come out in force to support the families and the emergency services with reports of residents grabbing their coats and heading into the water and to the lake side to help anyway they could.
Supt Harris said police officers went into the water without specialist equipment in a bid to try and rescue the children before specialist teams arrived.
He added: “One of my officers was trying to punch through the ice to actually rescue the children themselves.
“That officer as a result of that had some mild hypothermia. I’m pleased to say that he’s now been released from hospital and he’s absolutely fine.”
Richard Stanton the area commander from West Midlands Fire Service said firefighters did the same.
He added this is a stark reminder of the dangers of open waters and called on parents and carers to remind their children about the dangers of ice.
Shortly after the incident occurred a West Midlands Fire Service spokesperson said: “Reports from the scene and videos on social media indicate that people had been playing on the ice on a pond and had fallen through.”
Temperatures were at around 1°C when the incident happened.
Specialist officers are working with the families and the police and fire services were only releasing the information they wanted them to make available to the media.
West Midlands Police said the incident is not being treated as a criminal investigation at this time.
Anyone with information, videos or images of what happened should contact police by calling 101 or upload it here.
