Va. Beach man rescues 11-year-old from icy pond

Feb. 18--VIRGINIA BEACH -- Joe Maggiore was upstairs in his home Tuesday morning when his wife heard cries for help outside. She opened the door without disabling the alarm.

Then Maggiore's daughter yelled to him.

A boy was in the water.

Maggiore looked out the window and saw an 11-year-old submerged to his waist. He was in an icy retention pond in a neighborhood near Kemps River Drive and Indian River Road.

Maggiore, a former trainer in the Boston Red Sox organization, ran into his garage and slipped into a wet suit he uses for surfing on cold days.

A thin sheet of ice had broken beneath the boy at around 11 a.m. His 15-year-old brother tried to go in after him but ran for help when he couldn't reach him. A neighbor tried to throw a rope to the boy, but it wasn't long enough. He was about 30 feet from the embankment.

Maggiore crawled on all fours on the pond, spreading out as he went so his weight wouldn't break the ice. He worried that it would crack and he would fall in. If that happened, he thought, the wet suit would protect him. He would just have to move faster.

Maggiore, alternating between careful crawling and sliding, finally reached the boy. He threw the rope toward him but the boy didn't grab it. Maggiore urged him on.

"You gotta do this," he said.

The boy finally clutched the rope with one of his gloved hands, and Maggiore pulled him out of the water. The boy was soaked from the waist down. He was shivering. Maggiore slid him toward a neighbor, and they made their way back to the embankment.

The boy's wet jacket and jeans weighed him down as Maggiore started to carry him. A policeman who had just arrived helped him get the boy to the closest house, where they warmed him by a fire as EMS crews attended to him.

The boy wasn't taken to a hospital and is expected to be OK.

Maggiore has helped people with asthma attacks and shortness of breath, but this was a new experience for him.

"It's the first time I've had to dive on a frozen lake, that's for sure," he later recounted. "I'm just glad we got to him in time."

Mary Beth Cleavelin, 757-222-5208, marybeth.cleavelin@pilotonline.com

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