Child Dies After Falling Through Ice at Gaithersburg Pond

UPDATED 11:40 p.m.—A 10-year-old child has died after falling into an icy sediment pond in Gaithersburg on Monday.

The child was one of three children who had to be rescued from a sediment pond at Diamodback Road and Reprise Drive, near the new Crown development. The survivors were safely rescued within five minutes and were taken to the hospital for check ups.

But it took rescuers 30 minutes to find the 10-year-old. Emergency responders aggressively tried to save the youth’s life, efforts that continued at the hospital, according to Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service spokeswoman Beth Anne Nesselt.

But the child later died.

Nesselt said that just after 4 p.m., a construction worker called 911 to report that three children had fallen into the ice. The caller kept an eye on where the children fell through—an effort rescuers credit with helping to find the two survivors, according to Nesselt.

Nesselt said that ice formed on ponds or other bodies of water should never be considered safe.

“You can’t judge the strength of ice simply by appearance, thickness, temperature or whether the ice if covered by snow,” Nesselt said. “Strength is based on all these factors, plus the depth of the water beneath the ice, size of the water body, water chemistry, currents and local climatic conditions.  Ice seldom freezes uniformly and, again, in this region should never be considered safe.”

The 10-year-old’s death is the second child death in the area in less than a week. A 4-year-old boy was killed in an apartment fire in Montgomery Village on Wednesday.