2 young brothers die after being pulled from icy retention pond in suburban Chicago

PALATINE, Ill. — Two young boys died after falling into an icy retention pond while visiting their grandmother in a Chicago suburb, authorities said.

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The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office identified the children as Ro’Siah Brooks, 4, and Romalice Brooks, 6, WFLD-TV reported.

Police in the northwestern Chicago suburb of Palatine responded to the pond at about 3:31 p.m. CST on Wednesday, according to the television station.

Ro’Siah Brooks was taken to Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights and later transferred to Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge, where he was pronounced dead at 11:43 p.m. EST Wednesday, the Daily Herald of Arlington Heights reported. Romalice Brooks was transferred to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead at 3:54 a.m. EST Thursday, according to the newspaper.

“This is tough. This is so tough,” the boys’ mother, Teghan Ivy, told WMAQ-TV. “I never imagined having to bury my kids at the same time.”

Ivy was inside the residence when she heard her boys screaming out her name. The boys had not been outside for very long, she told the television station.

“I heard them, ‘Mommy! Mommy!’ And, I came outside. I did the only thing I knew to do. I took off my shoes and I got on that ice and tried to get them. I didn’t make it to them. The ice cracked and I fell in, too. I tried!” Ivy told the Daily Herald. “It felt like forever waiting for them to get them out (of) that water.”

The boys were submerged for nearly 20 minutes before rescue divers brought them to dry land, police said. Both were unresponsive, according to the Daily Herald.

“I don’t know, like a feeling I never felt in my life, like seeing two kids like that, going through that type of stuff,” a neighbor, Deandre Boatman, told WLS-TV.

Family members described the brothers as inseparable, WMAQ reported. They did everything together from craving pumpkins to baking.

“They were the definition, like I said, of ‘my brother’s keeper,” Ivy told the Daily Herald. “Even to their final moments, they were together.”

The family has started a GoFundMe page to raise money for the boys’ funerals. As of Saturday afternoon, more than $19,300 had been raised.

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