The open water was about 45 feet across. It sat roughly 150 feet out from the bank of a pond in Windsor, Colorado, where the rest of the surface was ice.
It was January 27, 2025. Tara Vreeland, 41, was walking her two golden retrievers nearby.
One of the dogs ran out onto the ice after some geese. It went into the open water.
Vreeland went out after it. She lay on her stomach at the edge and reached for the dog.
Her second dog jumped onto her back. The ice gave way, and she and the second dog went in.
Judd Bronson was walking on a trail nearby. He was 52, a chiropractor who lived in Windsor.
He heard faint calls for help. Then he heard moaning.
He looked and saw a woman and two dogs in the water, struggling to stay up.
He took off his winter coat. Then, instead of running straight for the pond, he climbed over a short barbed-wire fence beside the trail.
Have you tried Elon Musk's new AI agent?
It's the most powerful AI ever created.
Musk himself thinks it could make investors 70 times their money.
In a few short years…
That will make this AI agent available to every American.
But you can get in right now…
When you click this link, I'll give you a live demo of this amazing AI agent – for free.
On the other side, he gathered three large sticks. He climbed back over the fence with them and ran to the edge of the pond.
At some point he called out for a bystander to dial 911. Then he walked out onto the ice.
He made it about 75 feet. There the ice was getting thinner.
He was halfway there.
He got down on his stomach. He laid the sticks beneath him to spread his weight and crawled the last 75 feet to the open water.
Vreeland was no longer responding. She could not take hold of the stick he held out to her.
He hooked the end of the stick into the hood of her parka. He pulled her toward him.
The dogs followed her. Holding Vreeland with one arm, he pulled both dogs up onto the ice.
Then he started backing up. He slid backward a few feet at a time, pulling her with him, until she was completely out of the water.
He dragged her across the ice to the bank. First responders were waiting there.
Vreeland's body temperature when she reached the hospital was 83 degrees. Normal is about 98.6.
Doctors classify a body temperature below about 90 degrees as moderate hypothermia.
She recovered.
Bronson was exhausted and cold. He was not hurt.
In 2026, he was awarded the Carnegie Medal, given to civilians in the United States and Canada who enter extreme danger to save or try to save the lives of others.
The record shows what he did before he set foot on the ice. He took off the coat, crossed the barbed wire twice, and came back with three sticks.
The last 75 feet he covered on his stomach.
If you heard a woman's calls for help fade to moaning out on the ice, would you have had the discipline to stop for three sticks before you went out?