BONHAM, Texas — Three brothers — ages 6, 8 and 9 — died in Texas during the massive winter storm gripping the U.S. after falling through an icy pond across the street from a house where they were staying, authorities said Tuesday. Their mother said she jumped into the freezing water but wasn't able to save them.
“They were just screaming, telling me to help them,” Cheyenne Hangaman told The Associated Press. “And I watched all of them struggle, struggle to stay above the water. I watched all of them fight.”
The brothers died on Monday after falling into the private pond north of Bonham, a rural community of about 10,000 people near the Oklahoma border, the Fannin County Sheriff’s Office said. First responders and a neighbor pulled the two older boys from the water and the youngest sibling was recovered after an extensive search of the pond, according to the sheriff.
Hangaman said she and her children had been staying at a friend’s house across the street from the pond, and that she’d warned them to not go near it. But, she said, on Monday her youngest daughter ran to tell her that her brothers were in the water.
“I ran across as much ice as I could to get to them and eventually ended up falling in myself,” said Hangaman, who said the freezing water immediately shocked her body.
“I would grab one, try to put him on ice, but the ice just kept breaking every time I would sit him up there," she said. "I would just keep trying to go to each one of them trying to help them and it was only me, like I couldn’t help them all by myself.”
Hangaman said a man who came to help was able to throw a rope to her to get her out of the pond.
“I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move," she said. “By that time I knew that my kids were already gone. So I just had to try to fight for my life at that point.”
All three of the boys were in elementary school in the Bonham Independent School District, which had canceled classes Monday because of the frigid weather that has swept across much of the U.S. The school district was also closed Tuesday due to extreme weather conditions, including icy roads and freezing temperatures.
“We are devastated by this unimaginable loss, and our thoughts are with the family, friends, and all who knew and loved these children," Superintendent Lance Hamlin said in a letter to parents.
Hangaman said all three boys were “bubbly.” “You couldn’t really stop their bubbliness,” she said.
On Tuesday, a layer of ice still covered much of the small pond in a wooded area.
More than 40 deaths have been reported in states affected by severe cold.
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Associated Press writers Jamie Stengle in Dallas and Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report.