Pond rescue has another happy ending with award

mysteriew

A diamond in process
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The last time 3-year-old Ava Williams saw a firefighter, she was singing "Jingle Bells" and sitting on her brand-new sled in the middle of a frozen pond.

That was in December.

On Wednesday, Ava met up with the Clermont County firefighters who saved her life that cold day. They presented Ava and her dad, Jason Williams, with certificates of commendation for being calm, cool and collected in the face of danger on Dec. 10.

"I was very brave that day," Ava said, matter-of-factly as she moved a strand of blond hair from her forehead.

"I was a wreck," declared her dad, a commercial real estate agent.

On that day, while Ava sat atop the frozen pond, her dad stood on the shore. He looked helplessly at Ava's back. She couldn't turn the sled around. Underbrush kept him from reaching the opposite shore.

As he spoke with his daughter, Williams prayed that the thin, melting ice would not crack and send this little girl in the purple snowsuit into the frigid waters of the 1.5 acre pond in his sister's back yard.

Dan Berkebile, a nine-year veteran of the Miami Township Fire and Emergency Medical Service, was not about to let that happen.

Berkebile had more than a professional interest in rescuing Ava. Seeing her hit close to home. As he ran down the hill toward the pond, his eyes focused on a little girl who reminded him of "a 3-year-old blonde at home, my daughter Kaylyn. She has a purple snowsuit, too. So, seeing Ava pumped things up a notch."

As Berkebile prepared to toss a lifeline to the little girl, Ava saw him out of the corner of her eye. She called out:

"Hi Mr. Fireman! Are you coming to get me?"

Berkebile answered in the affirmative. He tossed a lifeline to little Ava. She wrapped her hands around the rope.

The firefighter slowly pulled her and her sled to shore.

He handed Ava to her dad and she announced:

"That was really fun Daddy! Let's do it again!"

Williams assured her there would be no repeat performance.
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