Brookelynn Pruitt is hailed as a hero for courageously taking action when two young children fell through the ice into a pond in Southwest Ohio.
She saved the two kids with the help of her horse, Oliver.
Pruitt, 13, couldn’t help but notice that Oliver appeared especially anxious as she braided his mane on a recent, wintery day.
Sensing his urgency, Pruitt searched the area to figure out what was wrong.
That’s how the Jacksonburg, Ohio, teen spotted the two children, her neighbors, playing on the ice-covered pond.
"I seen them running around the pond slipping, sliding, just playing," Pruitt recalled to WLWT. "So, I thought it's probably a good idea to check on them. I had a bad feeling something was going to happen."
Pruitt was right.
That’s when the ice broke and the two young girls, Hope and Nevedah, plunged into the pond.
Luckily, Pruitt recalled seeing something on National Geographic that helped her save the girls.
She knew to tell them to “stand still,” and “hang on to the edge of the ice” as she ventured out to help them.
“I knew I had to break a path through (the ice) to them so I had a clear way to swim them back,” Pruitt explained to WLWT. “When I got to them, they were freaking out a bit still.”
Pruitt noted to Fox 19 that by the time she reached the girls “they weren’t swimming too good.”
Per Pruitt’s instructions, the girls linked together and formed a “little chain” as Pruitt swam them back to safety. She said she willed herself to keep moving even as she felt her feet go numb from the cold.
“It scared me when I realized I couldn’t tell if my legs were still attached to my body,” Pruitt recalled to Fox 19. “I couldn’t feel my legs or my boots. I couldn’t feel if I was moving. All I could see was I was getting closer to the banks. I was either moving or drifting, so I knew I was at least getting somewhere.”
But besides “a couple cut-up hands and some blue toes,” no one was hurt by the time they got out of the pond.
Brenda Pruitt, Brookelynn’s mom, recalled how “drenched” and “hysterical” her daughter was once she returned home. Though it was a scary experience, she’s a “proud parent” of her daughter.
Once the teen realized what was happening, she was determined to help.
“It's inhumane of you not to go save someone,” she said. “You can't just leave them there.”
Photo: Getty Images