Nationwide — Cheynne Hangaman, an African American mother from Bonham, Texas, lost her three young sons after they fell through a frozen pond. She jumped into the icy water trying to save them, but couldn’t reach them in time.
The boys, Howard, 6, Kaleb, 8, and E.J., 9, were playing near a private pond across from a friend’s house where the family was staying. Cheynne had warned them to stay away, but her youngest daughter ran to tell her that her brothers had fallen in.
“I ran across as much ice as I could to get to them and eventually ended up falling in myself,” Hangaman said, according to WLBT. The freezing water shocked her body, and she struggled to lift her sons onto the ice as it kept breaking. A neighbor managed to throw her a rope, pulling her out, but by then she knew her boys were gone.
First responders and a neighbor recovered the two older boys, while Howard did not resurface immediately and was found after an extensive search. Cheynne described watching her sons struggle to stay above water as she desperately tried to help each of them.
“I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move,” she said. “By that time, I knew that my kids were already gone. So I just had to try to fight for my life at that point.”
Cheynne remembered her sons as “bubbly” and full of life. All three boys attended elementary school in the Bonham Independent School District, which closed classes on Monday and Tuesday due to extreme cold and icy roads. Superintendent Lance Hamlin expressed the district’s sorrow, saying, “We are devastated by this unimaginable loss, and our thoughts are with the family, friends, and all who knew and loved these children.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up to support the family during this tragedy. It has so far raised over $63,000.