Man dies, brother survives after both fall into freezing pond while ice fishing in New York

Two brothers set out last week to go ice fishing at a pond in upstate New York – but only one survived the trip. Officials say the ice covering the pond was too thin, resulting in the men falling through into freezing waters. 

New York's Department of Environmental Conservation said officials were made aware of the incident in the afternoon of Jan. 6, when someone who was walking his dog in the small town of Burlington witnessed the two brothers fall through the ice covering Basswood Pond. A forest ranger happened to be just "one minute away from the pond," and was able to quickly respond. 

The officer, identified as Ranger Laymon, saw that one of the men was treading water. Laymon then entered the ice and crawled toward the man, using a throw bag to help pull the 42-year-old Richfield Springs man out of the water and pull him onto a sled. 

"I was coaching him, you know, 'hey, kick your feet, kick your feet,'" Laymon said of the incident. 

As emergency personnel worked to help the man, who officials say was "suffering from hypothermia," Laymon went back to the pond to search for his 41-year-old brother, who had fallen out of sight. Within 10 minutes, Laymon found him "in seven to eight feet of water," the DEC said. 

"I just started scanning the water," Laymon said. "...I saw a red, white and black reflective coat, and was like, 'yeah, that's gotta be the guy.' ... It took a couple of attempts, but I was trying to reach down and grab his coat. And I don't have the longest arms, so eventually, I made a big push, dipped my head under, dove my shoulders down, got ahold of the guy and brought him to the surface." 

After he was rescued from the water, EMTs conducted CPR and both brothers were taken to the hospital. The eldest brother was "treated and released," officials said, while the younger brother "was declared deceased by the hospital later that night." 

Officials have not released the names of the brothers.

Officials said the ice that coated the pond was roughly one-inch thick, an amount "unsafe for fishing." The department urges on its website that as a general rule, ice should be a minimum of three to four inches, although they warn that ice thickness "is not uniform on any body of water." 

In:
• Winter Weather
• New York

Li Cohen

Li Cohen is a social media producer and trending content writer for CBS News.