FREMONT, Ohio -- A man who tried to rescue three boys struggling to stay afloat after falling through the ice on the Sandusky River in north-central Ohio first tried to walk on the ice until it started cracking.
Marcos Lopez said he and his daughter then threw a rope toward the boys, but it was too short to reach them.
"We saw their hands and their little heads sticking out of the water," Lopez said. "You feel so helpless."
The boys, ages 7, 8 and 10, died Sunday. A neighbor said two of the boys were with their older brother, who watched the three fall through the ice.
Neighbor Toni Singleton said she visited the 11-year-old brother who survived and said he was collecting dead fish from the icy surface when the others fell through.
Singleton said the boy now blames himself for the loss of his brothers and one of his best friends. "He said, 'They always looked up to me, and I'm the one that told them to go out there,"' Singleton said.
The boys were identified 7-year-old Jay'Den Taylor-Everett; his brother, 8-year-old Da'Vontae Everett; and 10-year-old Rafel Villanueva, all of Fremont.
Temperatures that had reached the mid-40s Sunday weakened the ice on the river to less than 2 inches thick, rescuers said.
The boys were in the middle of the river, where the water was about 10 feet deep when the ice broke. They were in the water between 60 and 90 minutes, Sandusky County Sheriff Kyle Overmyer said.
Firefighters pulled out two of the boys, and a diver later recovered a third boy from below the surface.
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