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Suburban Firefighters Practice For Icy Rescues

CAROL STREAM, Ill. (CBS) -- It may seem that everything is icing up with this bitter blast, but that can be misleading when it comes to snow- covered ponds and lakes.

A Downers Grove boy was pulled from the frigid waters after falling through thin pond ice Tuesday. He's lucky. He survived.

CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot was in Carol Stream where firefighter paramedics performed a rescue drill in the freezing water of a local pond.

"You see he is going around. He's getting in the water with him. He is going to hook him up. As they pull this back, it will cinch up against the victim," said Carol Stream Acting Battalion Chief Rusty Grenier. "He's tied off, grabs onto the guy, just to keep control of him and they pull him into shore....It doesn't take long."

Grenier says, rescues can be quick, if you think walking across ice is safe, think again.

"This kind of weather, you'll get layering, because we've had a warm day and a cold day then a warm day, so you can have very thin ice or you could have ice that's just not solid enough for you to walk on," he said.

Whether it's using a throw bag to get to a victim quickly or hoisting a tower ladder to get a bird's eye view to reach a person that has fallen through the ice paramedics say seconds count in ice/water rescue scenarios.

"The cold water is going to hit them fairly quickly," said firefighter paramedic Greg Schwarze. They are not going to have a whole lot of time to hang on. That's why we want to speed things up and get out there as soon as we can."

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