Two Heroic Illinois Police Officers Dive Into Icy Water to Rescue Crash Victims

In the middle of a brutally cold night last weekend in Illinois, two Glendale Heights police officers did something truly extraordinary to save three people after their car crashed into a frozen pond.

Glendale Heights' Police Heroes

Do you remember how brutally cold it was last weekend in Illinois? Well, two police officers in Glendale Heights, Illinois ignored the cold in order to save three lives on Sunday, December 14.

Around 1:35 a.m. Sunday morning the Glendale Heights Police Department received a call for help after a car slid into a frozen pond near Burdette Avenue and Roberta Avenue.

Officers Dennis Stachura and Marco Lomibao were the first to arrive on the scene, and by the time they got there, the situation was already dire.

The car was completely submerged under around 12 feet of water and three victims were trapped in the icy conditions, about 30 feet from the shore, with temperatures sitting at just one above zero.

As you can tell from body cam footage shared by the Glendale Heights Police Department, one officer took no time jumping into the freezing water to save the victims submerged underneath:

While the situation was terrifying, this story has a happy ending. All three victims were rescued safely and only suffered minor injuries, the heroic police officers were okay too.

Stories like this are powerful reminders that heroes don’t always wear capes, sometimes they wear a badge and jump into an ice-cold pond at 1:35 in the morning. It's nice to have a reminder that quiet heroism still happens nearly every day in our communities.