“My foot went through first, then I hit my head on the ice,’’ Joyce said. “I kept reaching out.’’
Joyce said his friend Tim Cyckowski tried to help him out of the water and then crashed through the ice himself.
“Tim tried to help me, then we were stuck,’’ said Joyce.
The water, he said, “was up to our necks. We were struggling to get out. I don’t know how to swim. I was freaking out.’’
As he flailed in the freezing water, Joyce said, he felt like he was passing out and all he thought was: “What a stupid way to die.’’
Once the surface ice had broken in that spot, adjoining sections were too weak to support them and kept breaking under the boys’ weight.
Unable to pull themselves out, they had no choice but to break up the ice with their hands and fists until they reached the shore, said Joyce.
“We had to break our way out,’’ he said.
Meanwhile, the other teens “were screaming and trying to get help,’’ Joyce said.
The police and fire department appeared on the scene about nine minutes later, Joyce said. By then, he and his friend had reached the shore.
Luckily, they escaped with only cuts, scrapes, and bruises.
“It was scary,’’ Joyce said. “I was in shock.’’
Saugus police called Joyce’s mother, Joyce Valente, and told her about the incident and that her son was being taken to Melrose-Wakefield Hospital.
“I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness,’ ’’ she recalled. She hung up immediately and rushed to the hospital, where her son was being treated for hypothermia.
She said Tyler had arrived at the hospital wet and freezing, and his hand was swollen from punching through the ice.
“They warmed him up, took a few X-rays, and released him’’ two hours later, she said.
Valente said she had warned her son in the past about staying away from the frozen reservoirs in the winter.
“It’s not a joke,’’ she told him.
On Jan. 17, State Fire Marshal Stephen Coan issued a warning, cautioning the public about the dangers of thin ice.
