A 12-year-old boy is dead and an 11-year-old girl is in critical condition after both children fell through ice at a park in Albany, New York, authorities said Sunday.
Albany Police said they responded late Saturday afternoon to Washington Park Lake for reports of two children who had fallen through the ice. Officers found an 11-year-old girl who was treated at the scene and taken to Albany Medical Center Hospital in critical condition.
Later, members of the New York State Police underwater recovery team searched the lake, and at around 7:25 p.m., the body of the boy was recovered from the lake.
Investigators believe that the boy tried to walk north across the lake towards the lake house and fell through the ice, and the girl who witnessed him fall tried to help. She apparently “followed the same path of travel across the lake, where she also fell through the ice,” police said.
Both children are students of the North Albany Middle School, the district confirmed in a social media post.
“Our hearts go out to the families of these students at this incredibly difficult time,” Superintendent Joseph Hochreiter said in a statement. “This is a terrible tragedy and we are grieving as a school community.”
According to New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation, Washington Park Lake covers over 5 acres and has an average depth of 6.6 feet and a maximum depth of 11 feet.
Erica Sheer, who didn’t know the children, told CBS affiliate WRGB-TV that she came to the lake Sunday to honor them.
“Well, I decided that I would take a walk over here just to pay my respects to the spot where this happened and pray for the young boy and the young girl who were in the accident yesterday and their families and to wish them well,” Sheer told the station.
