Man Searches For Brookline Hero That Saved His Life In 1974

BROOKLINE, MA — Damon Schreiber vividly remembers what happened the day he fell through the ice and almost died on Dec. 30, 1974 at Hall's Pond in Brookline.

In the intervening years he's thought about that day a number of times and how it could have gone much differently. What he doesn't remember is much about the young man that saved him.

Now, Schreiber, 55, is looking for the man on the off chance that someone may remember hearing the story of a guy reaching out and saving an 8-year-old boy that windy winter day way back when.

Dec. 30, 1974, Monday

Schreiber and his friend were hanging around Hall's Pond. He said last week in a phone call that after all these years he still remembers pulling at a rubber tire that had lodged in the pond when some other children, about his age started tossing stones at him and his pal. They took off running across the pond — right onto thin ice.

His friend fell through first, and when Schreiber tried to help, he fell in as she was scrambling out. She was unable to help him out, and he was immediately terrified, he said.

Time slowed down and the 8-year-old, who had just learned to tread water the year before, tried to keep afloat as he went into shock. He said he remembered his parents faces flashing through his head and shouting.

"I was very disoriented," Schreiber said. "I was wondering if I was going to die, I was screaming 'save me!'"

He could hear sirens, and remembered seeing a fire truck and police cars on the shore eventually, so figured it must have been a few minutes, at least, that he was struggling to stay afloat in the frigid water. The Farmer's Almanac reported the high for that day in Brookline to be 46 degrees. The water was likely much colder.

Depending on the person, some can survive in 41 degree water for several minutes before the muscles get weak, lose coordination and strength, vision blurs and speech slurs because of hypothermia, according to Scientific America.

Schreiber remembers feeling desperate.

And then it happened.

A young man jumped into the water and scooped him out and to safety. He remembers looking over at a sign on the side of a building and not being able to read it, and thinking that was strange. Not long after that, police were there pulling blankets from the cruiser trunk, wrapping them around them and he and his friend were in the back of a police car heading to the hospital.

He said he remembers the officers telling him and his friend not to close their eyes, most likely because they were experiencing hypothermia.

"That stuck with me," he said.

Who was that guy?

Schreiber said the only two things he remembered about the man who had saved him were that he must have been in his 20s, and that he was wearing a red jacket. But his friend, who he recently reconnected with, said she didn't remember a red jacket.

A couple years ago, he was able to get his hospital record and saw, according to the report, that nurses had measured his body temperature to be around 94 degrees when he first came in. He had been treated for hypothermia, which is potentially fatal.

At age 8, Schreiber didn't think much of the rescue.

"When you’re a kid, you kind of take things for granted," he said.

He was more concerned that he lost one of his favorite boots that day in the water, it was a blue suede boot, he said.

"It didn’t seem as huge a deal at the time, but doing more research on this, and thinking about it more often, and seeing ones who drowned, it just makes me feel very lucky, because I know it could have gone another way."

Now, as an adult with a family of his own he looks back with different eyes and said he wishes he could hear the story from that man's perspective and meet the man who saved him that day and thank him.

"I'm wondering if he told people at the time, if that story exists in some community, it would be so great if somebody could connect the dots," he said. "You never know. I’m not expecting it to happen, but it would be great if it did."

What would he say to the man?

"I want him to know I’m forever grateful, I’ve had a good life, largely thanks to him," Schrieber said. "I’ve got a wife and an adult son and grandson, he has done a lot of good in the world, I’d say. If he’s still in the Brookline area, parents still in the area, like to meet him. "

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