By Dan O’Brien
The Union Leader
HOOKSETT, N.H. — Firefighters and medical workers received a show of support Wednesday for saving a woman trapped for three hours in an icy pond behind her home last month.
At the town council meeting, Kelly Dwyer, 46, and her family donated a rescue toboggan to the fire department to assist in future similar rescues.
Dwyer was snowshoeing in a remote area behind her Carriage Lane home Feb. 13 when she fell through ice and was trapped in chest- deep water.
The mother of two comes from a family of firefighters and thanked the local members, as well as doctors and emergency medical technicians, for saving her.
“The doctors told me I had 15 minutes to live at the time of my rescue,” Dwyer said. “I’m alive because of them today.”
Her brother, Stephen Lynch, is a firefighter in Dedham, Mass., and her father, Tom, is a retired Dedham firefighter. Dozens of firefighters from Dedham, Hooksett and Allenstown and emergency medical technicians from Tri-Town Ambulance were on hand to watch the donation.
“These guys kept my family together, and I can’t express that in words,” she said. “You can imagine the respect and admiration I have for firefighters. They truly don’t know what they’re going to face on a call. They didn’t know what they were facing Feb. 13.”
Dwyer is active in the New Hampshire Audubon Society and known around town for volunteering in the schools and the Girl Scouts.
Dwyer’s children, Laura, 14 and Kathryn, 12, voiced concern to their father, David Dwyer, when their mother hadn’t returned home after snowshoeing for several hours.
David went looking for his wife and found her clinging to life in chest-deep water. He tried to pull Kelly out of the water as much as he could, and held her part way out of the water until firefighters arrived.
EMTs performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on Dwyer for about three hours until an emergency surgery team from Catholic Medical Center arrived to perform cardiopulmonary bypass, which is when the blood is removed from the body, warmed and returned. Dwyer’s temperature was about 78 degrees at the time of her rescue.
Standing in the council chambers before the ceremony began, Dwyer described it as not overwhelming, but “the most joyous thing I’ve experienced in a long time.” She spent 12 days in the hospital and has made a recovery doctors said is amazing.
“The surgeons did not expect I’d live, never mind recover,” Dwyer said.
Other than some nerve damage on her hand, “I’ve been doing fantastic,” she said.
Dozens of people retreated to the gym of the town hall, where refreshments were served.
“It’s just a miracle,” said Dwyer’s father, Tom Lynch. “I thought she was gone.”
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