Fisherman warns trapped and terrified boy ‘don’t move'

Watch: A fisherman is being hailed a hero after he used his fishing skills to rescue an 11-year-old boy who was trapped atop a small ice (...)

A fisherman is being hailed a hero after he used his fishing skills to rescue an 11-year-old boy who was trapped atop a small ice floe on the Desenka River in the city of Kyiv in Ukraine.

The boy, who somehow became stranded on the ice, couldn’t swim. Richard Gorda, the angler, kept him calm by telling him, “Stand still, don’t move…Don’t be afraid…Don’t turn around. Look at me.”

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Gorda made a cast with a hookless weight to the boy, who grabbed the line, held on tight and followed Gorda’s instructions. He didn’t move.

Two videos show the rescue, one by Reuters via Twitter from the angler, the other from a bystander who posted it on Facebook.

A man in Ukraine was seen casting a fishing rod equipped with a weight towards a boy floating on a block of ice to save him pic.twitter.com/q2k0EEmrHr

— Reuters (@Reuters) March 24, 2021

Ukraine’s Independent Information Agency of News (UNIAN) reported that the “terrified” boy was drifting on the piece of ice “dozens of meters off the shore.”

UNIAN also stated that Gorda directed adults present at the scene to call emergency services, as the river depth at that spot was 65-feet deep.

Turns out, emergency services were not needed because Gorda pulled the boy ashore without incident, but he admonished the youth, telling him, “It’s over now, but you deserve to get a spanking.”

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Gorda told UNIAN he doesn’t consider himself a hero and said he’s done things like this before.

“There is no feat, we just turned out to be in the right place and at the right moment,” Gorda told UNIAN. “The fact that I cast [the spinning rod] and hit at once is God’s mercy. I might have had time for another try. The ice piece was cracking under that boy. The child didn’t even get wet or anything, he’s safe and sound, but he will learn that lesson for life.”

Photos courtesy of Richard Gorda and Sergey Bulavsky.