7 year old twin brothers die falling into frozen pond in Onslow County, North Carolina as their mother, Barbara Zarlinga jumps in after them trying to save them after realizing they had fallen in while she was inside cooking dinner.
A preventable tragedy…? A North Carolina mother is grieving the loss of her 7-year-old twin sons after the boys fell into an icy pond in Onslow County over the weekend.
Barbara Zarlinga said she jumped into the pond, Sunday evening to try to save the 7-year-old brothers, Benjamin and Sebastian.
‘I saw Sebastian in the water, I didn’t know it was him at the time,’ the mom told WHSV. ‘I was praying to God it was a toy. Praying to God it was a toy and when I got into the water, it was not.’
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Zarlinga said she pulled Sebastian out and performed life-saving measures along with her daughter.
Medics arrived and got Benjamin out of the water, and they were then taken to Camp Lejeune Naval Medical Center where the siblings were declared dead.
Leading up to the tragedy, Zarlinga, was cooking dinner while her two young sons played outside. At some point the mom called the boys, but when they didn’t answer on the third call, she knew something was wrong. After searching for the boys all over the neighborhood, the parent went to check the pond behind their house.
Zarlinga said she will always be grateful for the first responders who did what they could and one first responder who pulled her out of the water.
‘The woman that pulled me out of the pond,’ the mom said. ‘She prayed over me that night and she took me through the woods and prayed over me the whole time we were walking.’
Preventable tragedy?
The mother said she was treated for hypothermia while she was at the hospital but is fine.
‘I hope nobody has to holler their children’s name and not get a response,’ grandmother Denice Capretta Morrison said.
Not immediately clear is how the brothers came to fall into the icy pond. and whether the mother ought to have taken a more ‘hands on’ monitoring of her sons as they played outside amid recent cold snaps hitting the nation.
A family friend has since set up an online fundraiser for Zarlinga. As of Wednesday evening, it had raised more than $26,000 to help the mother with medical and funeral expenses.
