A five
year-old Smithfield boy who fell through thin ice and a town police
officer who desperately tried to rescue him were drowned about 4
p.m. yesterday in the frigid waters of lower Spragueville Reservoir.
The victims were
Kenneth Firby, son of Mr. and Mrs. Archie Firby of Deer Run Trail,
and Patrolman Norman G. Vezina, 38, of 6 Camp St., a policeman only
eight months and the newest regular member of the town police force.
As
Patrolman Vezina struggled to lift the boy above water, town firemen
tried unsuccessfully several times to throw a rescue rope within his
reach.
First the
boy, then the policeman succumbed to the icy water and went under as
Mrs. Firby, a neighbor, another patrolman and firemen watched
helplessly.
Firemen
launched two rescue boats. Rescue squad members in the first boat
found the boy about five minutes later in water eight feet deep
about 25 feet from shore. He was pronounced dead at Our Lady of
Fatima Hospital.
Firemen in
the second boat searched for nearly an hour before they recovered
Patrolman Vezina's body.
According
to police reports and the accounts given by eyewitnesses, the child
was playing alone on ice one-half to three-quarters of an inch thick
when it gave way.
The first person to see
the Firby child was George Simmons, 17, a senior at Smithfield High
School who lives across the street from the Firby family, a few
hundred feet from the water.
"I was
walking down to the shore to see if the ice was thick enough for
skating when I heard splashing," he said. "I grabbed a rope from my
house and ran several hundred feet along the shore when I saw Ken on
his back, splashing in the water."
The Simmons youth said
he waded into the water four feet deep "and tried to throw Ken the
rope. But he was talking softly and was incoherent and couldn't grab
the rope. I tried to reach him but I couldn't."
The
teenager then waded out of the water and ran toward Mrs. Firby's
house.
He dashed by the home
of Mrs. Edward A. Crino of Totem Pole Trail. Mrs. Crino said she saw
him run by, picked up a pair of binoculars, looked out the parlor
window and saw the child struggling in the water. She called the
fire department.
The
Smithfield Police Department, which monitors fire calls, immediately
dispatched Patrolman Vezina and George H. Kelley, a special
patrolman.
Meanwhile,
Mrs. Firby saw the Simmons youth running toward her home and went
outside to meet him. "She asked me immediately if there was someone
in the water," the teenager said. "I told her yes, her son, and we
ran back together.
The two
arrived at the scene just in time to see Patrolman Vezina throw his
jacket and hat in his cruiser, leave his wallet and jacket liner on
the shoreline and plunge into the water.
Mrs. Crino, who joined
Mrs. Firby and the Simmons youth, said that Mrs. Firby shouted to
her son: "Stay floating, honey, it's okay."
As
Patrolman Vezina reached the boy, Patrolman Kelley and the fire
department arrived. Mrs. Firby, apparently assured of her child's
safety, told the Simmons youth to go home and change his clothes.
Private Paul A. Gantz
of the Greenville rescue unit said Patrolman Vezina began to lose
his grasp of the Firby child "even before we got out truck stopped."
He said he raced to the
water's edge with a life rope and tried to reach Patrolman Vezina
with it, "but it was impossible to get it to him before he went
down."
Once the
patrolman went under, the boy's red knit winter cap floated to the
surface.
"They just
disappeared," Mrs. Crino said.
The
reservoir is about 4,000 feet long and ranges in width from 50 to
1,000 feet. The drowning occurred in a cove about 300 feet wide, and
about 500 feet from Mrs. Crino's waterfront home.
As a result of the
double drowning, Roger W. Wheeler, a state recreational safety
inspector, advised parents yesterday to keep children away from all
ponds and other bodies of water until they have been declared safe.
He said
most of the state's ponds probably are covered only by a "skim
coating" of ice. He also recommended the use of boards, branches,
ropes and even clothing to save persons who have fallen through the
ice. If these means are available, he said, rescuers should not jump
in the water to help.
PROVIDENCE
JOURNAL-BULLETIN
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1968
DROWNED
POLICEMAN PROMOTED
