2 children die after falling into icy Indiana pond

WINSLOW, Ind. -- A boy and girl, both 12, died after falling through ice into a pond in southern Indiana, despite rescue efforts by the boy's mother, authorities said Friday.

State conservation officer Joe Haywood said the woman was cooking dinner Thursday evening when her son and a girl she was watching asked whether they could go outside to play.

When dinner was ready about 10 minutes later, he said the woman went outside to call the children and saw her son flailing in the icy water of the pond behind her home near the town of Winslow.

Haywood said the woman entered the pond but was unable to pull her son to shore. She did not see the girl in the water.

A public-safety diver retrieved both children, but they had been underwater for at least half an hour and could not be revived.

"They started CPR as soon as they were brought out of the water, and they continued that on the way to the hospital, but once they were at the hospital, it was determined they had passed," Haywood said. "It's absolutely heartbreaking for everyone involved."

The children were pronounced dead at a hospital in the nearby city of Jasper.

A coroner will perform autopsies. Haywood said it appears the children drowned.

He said it's not clear why the children were on the pond. He said they might have been playing on the ice.

Winslow is about 110 miles southwest of Indianapolis.