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No Skating
"Don't go down to that pond -- it's dangerous!" Stephanie Butler angrily shouted at her children. She'd overheard them talking about playing near the water on the golf course close to their apartment. It was a Saturday, and 8-year-old Jeremiah Butler was heading outside with his 11-year-old sister, Tiara, and their 13-year-old cousin, Evon McDuffie. They often went to the George Wilson Community Center in Newark, Delaware, just three houses away from their apartment building.
The Wilson center was a hub of activity for the community, especially in warm weather. But January 20, 2001, was a drizzly day with gusty winds. Rain mixed with snow, and the temperature hovered just above freezing -- a good day to play inside the center. Unfortunately, the three children had other ideas.Ignoring what Butler had said, Evon, Tiara and Jeremiah walked beyond the tree line at the back of the community center property and headed toward the large pond on the grounds of the adjacent Newark Country Club. The kids slid through a gap in the split-rail fence, then passed a No Trespassing sign posted on a metal gate nearby. As they approached the pond, they also walked by a No Skating sign.
The ponds and streams sprinkled throughout the country club's 18-hole golf course served as traps for the players. But the larger, man-made pond close to the community center had been expanded the previous year. It was eight feet deep, and took in a continuous flow of water from the nearby Bogey Run stream and returned excess water back to it through a large pipe. Other pipes connected the pond to the water traps on the golf course.
Tiara and Evon first stomped on the surface ice, and when it held, the children went out on the pond. Tiara remembers Evon yelling out to Jeremiah, "I bet you can't cross the whole thing."
"I bet you I can," Jeremiah replied, and he took off across the pond.
He made it to the other side, but as he came back, Jeremiah stepped on the thinner ice that covered the inflow from Bogey Run. The fragile frozen surface collapsed under his feet, and the boy sank into the frigid water. Evon raced back to the apartment for help, while a panicked Tiara tried to reach Jeremiah as he struggled to keep his head above water. But he kept slipping beneath the surface.
When firefighters and paramedics arrived, all they could see was Jeremiah's partially submerged coat. By the time one of the rescuers secured himself to a rope and jumped in to get Jeremiah, more than 30 minutes had passed. As the unconscious child was rushed to the hospital, paramedics frantically worked to resuscitate him. His life was saved, for now, but the effects of hypothermia and lack of oxygen left Jeremiah with severe brain damage. Confined to a wheelchair, he needed a tracheostomy tube to breathe, and suffered from seizures. Fourteen months after the accident, Jeremiah died from his injuries.
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