By Heart of Illinois ABC

PEKIN – A four-year-old boy is home safe tonight, just one day after being rescued by police officers after falling into a Pekin lake.

Three Pekin Police officers risked their own lives to save another at Pekin’s Meyers Lake Monday evening, after they saw the boy fall into the water and get trapped beneath the ice.

“As I understand it, he was beneath the ice, and the officer was actually hitting the ice trying to break it to get to him,” Tazewell County Sheriff Jeff Lower said.

The boy and the three officers were all hospitalized. The officers were treated for hypothermia before being released Monday night. The family of that boy tells Heart of Illinois ABC the child was discharged from an area hospital Tuesday. They say they are beyond thankful to the officers, who revived the boy with CPR after pulling him from the freezing water.

“A community that can be proud of these officers,” Lower said. “They saved a life. They saved the life of a child. And there’s nothing higher that you can do.”

The incident is also sparking a discussion about safety training. Mike Johnson is Police Chief at Fon Du Lac Park District and runs the area’s largest water rescue training programs. He says jumping into freezing water without proper gear can be dangerous.

“These guys did a phenomenal job, but on the same token, everyone is very lucky that was involved in this,” Johnson said. “People may think they still have three of four inches of ice to walk on. They don’t… You actually have more incidents of people falling through the ice in the Spring than you do in the middle of the Winter.”

Heart of Illinois ABC can be reached at News@WJBC.com.