13-Year-Old Boy Dies After Falling Through Ice On East Brunswick Pond

Despite an heroic rescue effort by police and firefighters, a 13-year-old boy died after falling through the ice Wednesday night on an East Brunswick pond, authorities said.

The boy, 13, fell in near East Brunswick police HQ.
Photo Credit: *CBS2*

The boy was playing with two other children when the ice broke on a pond in East Brunswick, responders said.
Photo Credit: *Googlemaps*

Jerry DeMarco

01/22/2020 9:10 p.m.

Yusef Khela was playing with two other children near police headquarters on Civic Center Drive when they all fell in shortly before 5 p.m., township police said.

Two got out of the water, but the third became trapped.

Yusef's friends quickly summoned police, who created a human chain to try and rescue the boy, "but he slipped under the ice before they could reach him," the department said in a release.

Firefighters eventually got him out of the water and conducted CPR, police said.

Yusef was taken to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, where he was pronounced dead nearly three hours later, they said.

Six police officers and two firefighters were treated for hypothermia, they said. Two of the officers and a firefighters were taken to the hospital.

Another officer was hospitalized after being involved in a crash en route to the scene, police said.

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