A man in an expensive coat fell through the ice while everyone else walked past. Only a seven-year-old girl dared to help: she lay down on the ice and began pulling on his scarf — and just a minute later, something happened that left everyone around frozen… 😱😲
The ice cracked so loudly that Anna didn’t even understand at first what had happened. She was walking along the city pond with an ordinary grocery bag. Inside were two loaves of bread and the cheapest cookies. The day was already turning toward evening, the snow around was pink from the sunset, and Anna was hurrying home.
Then she saw something strange.
In the middle of the pond, where the ice was always thinner, a man was struggling in the black water. His expensive coat was soaked and pulling him down. He clung to the edge of the ice hole with his hands, but the ice kept breaking again and again.
“Help…” he forced out, almost without a voice, as if he no longer had the strength to shout.
Anna turned sharply. People were standing on the shore. A woman in an expensive fur coat pressed her hand to her mouth and froze in place. A man in a sports jacket took out his phone but didn’t take a single step forward. A couple of teenagers glanced at each other and quickly walked away, as if they hadn’t seen anything.
“Someone call the rescuers!” the woman shouted, but she herself remained standing still.
Anna looked at the man and remembered the words her mother used to tell her. She always said that you must never go out onto the ice. But she also said something else — if a person is in trouble, you can’t just turn away.
Anna didn’t remember how she ended up on the pond. She only suddenly realized that she was running. Her boots were slipping, her fingers were going numb from the cold, and her heart was pounding so loudly that it drowned out all the sounds around her. She lay down on the ice and began to crawl.
“Hold on! I’ll help you!” she shouted, stretching out her scarf.
A minute later, the people on the shore froze at what happened… 😱😨 The continuation of the story can be found in the comments 👇👇
The man grabbed the fabric. He was almost completely exhausted, his hands were shaking, and his lips had turned blue. Anna pulled with all her strength, feeling the ice beneath her begin to crack. But the man managed to reach the shore in time.
And at that moment, the ice beneath Anna gave way.
She suddenly plunged into the water; the cold hit her chest so hard that it took her breath away. Anna screamed and immediately swallowed water. Everything happened in a second.
The man was freezing and exhausted, but by some miracle he managed to grab her by the jacket. With his last strength, he pulled and pushed the girl back onto the ice.
Only then did the people on the shore seem to wake up. Someone ran, someone shouted, someone called an ambulance and the rescuers. Within minutes, Anna and the man were taken to the hospital.
The man couldn’t stop looking at the girl. He was shaking and kept repeating:
“You knew you could fall through. Or even worse. Why did you help?”
Anna was trembling from the cold, her lips barely obeying her.
“My mom taught me to help people…” she whispered.
A few days later, the story was almost forgotten. The news was replaced by other news, and people went back to their lives.
One day, there was a knock on Anna’s door.
A man in a строг suit stood on the threshold. Silently, he handed over an envelope.
“This is a thank-you for saving my boss’s life. Your daughter deserves it,” he said. “We learned about your financial situation. Thank you for raising such a girl.”
Anna’s mother stood for a long time with the envelope in her hands, unable to say a single word.
