Winter is upon us, and many kids across the country have been pulling out their sleds and ice skates to enjoy the snowy season. That makes it a good time to remind children and teens about safety and looking out for one another. One group of 14- and 15-year-old teens set an example last December by their heroic act. These New Jersey teens saved the lives of some children who had accidentally sled into a partially frozen pond.
What Happened When the New Jersey Teens Saved the Children?
Five Middletown High School North freshman from New Jersey were enjoying some time in the wintery air in December of 2020. They were at the Beacon Hill Country Club, which is in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey, along with others from the public who were sledding and playing in the snow.
The five New Jersey teens were near the bottom of a hill, standing next to a pond when they heard screaming and a man yelling to his young children to hop off their sled.
Kiernan Foley told Kids Who Kare, a local children’s charity, in an interview, “We turned around and see these kids coming down the hill. They were going backwards.”
He explained that no one was close enough to the children to stop them before they slid into a pond.
Kiernan Foley, who was 14 at the time, was the first to act, but the other four, Drew Scalice (age 14), Joseph Dietrich (age 14), Ryan Day (age 15), and Tyler Armagan (age 14), worked together to help when they saw some children in trouble.
Watch the interview of them here:
These New Jersey teens saved the children by jumping quickly into action. Interestingly, they are being called heroes, but all five of them demonstrate humility in the video. When asked how they saved the children, Kiernan Foley himself responds by saying they were “just at the right place in the right time, I guess.”
But as soon as Kiernan Foley saw the kids fall into the icy water, he rushed over and jumped in. Apparently, he knew the water was only three or four feet deep going into it; so he knew it was a safe course of action to get the small children out as quickly as possible. He explained that he knew there was a risk for the children to get hypothermia; so he lifted the kids out and handed them to his friends, who had made a human chain to keep everyone safe as they rescued the kids.
Kiernan’s friend, Ryan Day, said, “Kiernan, I give him all the credits. He jumped in there without any hesitation.” But Ryan went on to explain that the five New Jersey teens saved the kids by working together. He said, “All of us were a great team. We all tagged along and saved those kids.”
Joseph Dietrich, another of the friends chimed in saying, “We all had to make sure that we did the right thing, and we didn’t want anything bad to happen.” Joseph explained that it wasn’t about being the heroes for them, it was about getting the 4-year-old and 8-year-old to safety. He said, “We didn’t think much of it. We just wanted to make sure the kids were okay.”