{"id":87752,"date":"2026-01-15T18:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/87752\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T18:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:46:09","slug":"officers-save-84-year-old-woman-from-freezing-pond-in-northampton-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/87752\/","title":{"rendered":"Officers save 84-year-old woman from freezing pond in Northampton County"},"content":{"rendered":"

A pair of Lehigh Township<\/a> police officers are being lauded for their work in rescuing an elderly woman who fell waist-deep into a freezing pond over the weekend.<\/p>\n

Officers Elias Batihk and Anthony Stinemire responded just after 2:30 p.m. Sunday to the koi pond at the woman\u2019s home in the 3400 block of West Walker Drive. Police were alerted to the emergency by a 911 medical pendant activation.<\/p>\n

The 84-year-old woman was spotted by the officers waving her arms in the air. Police said she slipped and fell into the water while attempting to clean her pond\u2019s water pump. <\/p>\n

Officers told WFMZ-69 News <\/a>that the rocks were too uneven for the woman to climb out on her own. Batihk said in the broadcast<\/a> that every moment matters in an emergency. The woman reported already being in the water for about 20 minutes before police arrived. <\/p>\n

Additionally, a light snow shower was reported by weather forecasters in the area at the time of the rescue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it was about 20 minutes longer, she likely would have passed out from severe hypothermia,\u201d Batihk said.<\/p>\n

The officers, with the help of a neighbor, were able to pull the woman from the pond and then bring her back to her home, where she was wrapped in a blanket and placed next to a heater, Stinemire said in the broadcast.<\/p>\n

The woman was then taken to an area hospital, where medical staff found her body temperature had dropped to 88 degrees. The woman is expected to make a full recovery, township police said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOfficer Batihk and Officer Stinemire saved a life today,\u201d the department posted on their Facebook page<\/a> Sunday evening.<\/p>\n

Batihk urged families to ensure elderly loved ones have medical pendants.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout that, there\u2019s no doubt in my mind, we\u2019d be at a different story here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Officer Batihk has been with the Lehigh Township Police Department since 2017, while Officer Stinemire has served since last year, according to the department\u2019s website.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pair of Lehigh Township police officers are being lauded for their work in rescuing an elderly woman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":{"0":"post-87752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-bethlehem","9":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","10":"tag-bethlehem-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}