Three boys in Texas died after they fell into an icy pond near their home. Their mother jumped into the water, but was not able to help her children.
Cheyenne Hangaman told The Associated Press, “They were just screaming, telling me to help them. And I watched all of them struggle, struggle to stay above the water. I watched all of them fight.”
It happened on Jan. 26 in the middle of a brutal winter storm in Bonham, Texas. The private pond was across from the home of a family friend, where they were staying.
First responders and a neighbor pulled the 9- and 8-year-old boys out. The children were taken to an area hospital, but died, KDFW reported.
The 6-year-old wasn’t found until officials searched the water, the Fannin County Sheriff’s Office said.
Hangaman told the AP that she had told the boys not to go near the pond. Her youngest daughter alerted her that her brothers had gone into the water.
She told KDFW that her youngest, Howard, went under first and that his older brothers, Kaleb and EJ, tried to help save their brother.
“I ran across as much ice as I could to get to them and eventually ended up falling in myself,” Hangaman said, but the ice shocked her body.
“I would grab one, try to put him on ice, but the ice just kept breaking every time I would sit him up there,” she said. “I would just keep trying to go to each one of them trying to help them and it was only me, like I couldn’t help them all by myself.”
A man threw a rope lifeline to her and was able to pull her from the water.
She said at that point she knew all was lost and was not able to help her boys.
“I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move,” she told the AP. “By that time I knew that my kids were already gone. So I just had to try to fight for my life at that point.”
“How do you go from having six kids to three? I don’t know how you do that. I guess I gotta figure it out. We were actually just supposed to be sledding in a cardboard box somewhere, but that didn’t happen,” Hangaman told KDFW,