British Boy Survives 30 Minutes Trapped Under Pond's Ice

A six-year-old British boy is fighting for his life after spending half an hour trapped under the surface of a frozen pond.Thomas Hudson was blue but still alive when he was pulled from the icy waters in Crookham Common, Berkshire, on Tuesday afternoon.

A woman thought to be his mother plunged into the large garden pond to try to rescue him after his playmate raised the alarm.

She was still in the water when firefighters arrived at the scene, near the family’s detached country home.

After the boy was recovered from the pond, medics worked to restart his heart and breathing and he was airlifted to the hospital for treatment.

The boy was thought to have walked out onto the ice as he was found not far from the center of the pond, which measured 60 feet in circumference.

Tuesday night he remained in a critical condition with his parents keeping vigil by his bedside.

Paramedic Hugh Whitaker said firefighters searched for the boy in icy waters for between 20 and 30 minutes before he was found.

"We worked as a team with the fire service to locate the boy in the water and he was pulled out," said Whitaker. "He was in cardiac arrest at the scene.

"It was thought he had been in there for around half an hour. Once he was located he was taken to the air ambulance and on to the John Radcliffe Hospital after being treated by a doctor.

"A woman who went into the water was examined by paramedics at the scene but she did not require hospital treatment."

A South Central Ambulance Service spokeswoman said the boy's young age, and the water's bitter temperature, could have helped his chances of recovery.

"In our experience, where children have been pulled out of water, as long as the water was icy, they can be revived from a state of respiratory arrest," she said.

"It could be because their metabolism slows down much faster than ours. But it's all touch and go. We are all hoping he makes it through."

Police have launched an investigation into how the boy came to fall into the pond.

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