A Group Of Teenagers Stood On A Frozen Pond In Central Park To Take Selfies On A 50 Degree Day And Obviously Fell Through The Ice

NBC- Dramatic video captured by a woman and her daughter shows the moments before and after a group of seven young people plunged through the ice on a pond in Central Park Monday. Lourdes Cuevas and her daughter Maia Ramirez, tourists from Paraguay, were taking a selfie as the group of kids, ranging in age from about 10 into the teens, climbed onto the ice-covered water on an unseasonably warm February holiday. Their photo shows the kids huddled on the ice behind them.

Suddenly, the group was in the water. Footage exclusively obtained by NBC 4 New York shows them floundering about, some struggling madly to grip the crumbling edges of ice, others screaming, as they tried desperately to escape. Cuevas said one of the kids completely disappeared under water. Two skateboarders who happened to be nearby raced to their rescue, and by the time firefighters arrived at the park by 59th Street and Central Park South, the kids had been pulled out of the water, witnesses and officials said. Some of the children and teens were recovering from hypothermia-related injuries at Bellevue and two other area hospitals on Tuesday morning, officials said. The good Samaritans, Bennett Jonas and Ethan Turmbull, told reporters they saw the kids dancing on top of the ice, then suddenly plunging into the water.

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I’m not going to do the typical millennial bashing for this story because it was a group of teens that fell through the ice. People of all ages like to take selfies like assholes in stupid places. When I went to San Fran, I had a group of at least 20 full grown Asian people just standing in the middle of the road by Lombard Street despite the fact that there were cars zooming by.

And I’m not going to say that you deserve to drown in a watery grave if you step foot on a frozen pond if you have ever heard the urban myth about “In The Air Tonight”, even though I kinda do.

But if you go on a frozen pond/lake/etc. on a 54 degree day after a weekend of 60 degree temperatures in the city, you deserve to at least think you are going to die as you paddle for your life. Like a 50/50 chance at best. Flip a coin. Heads you live, tails you die. That simple. I don’t understand the appeal of walking on a frozen body of water that can kill your ass when we invented ice rinks decades ago. It’s like swimming in an ocean or lake if there was always at least a chance some Lochness monster would devour you whole in an instant instead of swimming in a pool.

Also shout out to the lady that filmed this video. A steady hand with the requisite zoom once the action and cries for help really started getting dialed up. Heroes get remembered but people that film a group of teenagers drowning in a pond never die (no pun intended).