A Texas mother has described the devastating moment she tried to rescue her three young sons after they fell through an icy pond during a severe winter storm. Cheyenne Hangaman told local station Fox4 that she 'just couldn’t save' the boys, aged six, eight and nine, who had wandered onto a frozen pond behind a friend's house in Fannin County, near the Oklahoma border, on Monday.
Hangaman was alerted to the accident by the boys’ sister and rushed to the pond. 'I start running towards the pond and I jump in and I try to save them — also trying to keep myself alive because the water is freezing,' she said. 'As soon as I jump in, I like locked up.' She added: 'It was just one of me and three of them. And they were all needing me at one time and I couldn’t — I just couldn’t save them.'
Hangaman said she had warned her boys to stay away from the pond, but her youngest ventured onto the ice and fell through. His brothers ran to save him and also plunged in. A nearby man, the head football coach at Bonham High School, heard the chaos, raced to the scene and threw Hangaman a rope to pull her to safety. Multiple agencies responded, and first responders recovered the two eldest boys from the water, providing medical aid before rushing them to hospital. The youngest was found after an extensive search of the pond. All three were pronounced deceased.
Through tears, Hangaman remembered her sons' personalities: 'My oldest one, EJ, didn't care about nothing but football and getting his haircut. Caleb’s personality was out of this world. He was the sweetest soul I ever met. And Howard, he was just goofy. He liked to liven the party. He was hard-headed.' She shared her story to warn other parents of the dangers of icy conditions. A GoFundMe page has raised over $60,000 for funeral costs as of Tuesday evening.
The drownings occurred during winter storm Fern, which battered much of the US, causing over two dozen deaths and leaving thousands without power.
