Senior woman crashed – rescued at the last minute from a cold fishing pond

It was Sunday, around 8 p.m., and the sun had already set. The two men were on foot on their way home from the Oktoberfest in Altenfelden. “As we walked past the local fishing pond, we suddenly heard very faint cries for help. At first we weren’t sure, but then we shone the flashlight into the fish pond and there was someone!” reports the 51-year-old from Mühlviertel in an interview with the “Krone”.

‘I heard silent cries for help’
“I immediately jumped in and pulled the person to the edge of the pond. From there Alex, who stayed on the bank, brought him ashore.”

Neighbor must have slipped
The two immediately started the rescue chain, wrapping the wet woman in the rescuers’ dry clothes and getting warm blankets from a nearby house to warm the elderly woman. “Only then did I realize that the lady was my 83-year-old neighbor,” says the elderly lifesaver.

She must have left her house unnoticed and without a walker and walked to the fish pond, where she slipped on the long, dewy grass and fell into the cold Mühlviertler pond. Meanwhile, her family thought she had already gone to bed.

Senior woman on the road to recovery
The older woman couldn’t get herself out of the pool on her own; she was just able to keep her head above water and use the last of her strength to call for help. The rescue team quickly arrived on the scene and transported the severely hypothermic woman to the hospital.

“She is currently still being treated there, but she is doing well,” says a relieved Stefan Pöchtrager. ‘The paramedics said she probably wouldn’t have survived another ten minutes in the cold water. It was really lucky that we even heard them!”