{"id":235330,"date":"2026-04-04T21:37:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T21:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/235330\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T21:37:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T21:37:09","slug":"family-says-7-year-old-boy-drowned-trying-to-save-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/235330\/","title":{"rendered":"Family says 7-year-old boy drowned trying to save friend"},"content":{"rendered":"

HICKORY, N.C. (WSOC\/CNN Newsource\/WKRC) \u2014 A North Carolina family is mourning after a 7-year-old boy drowned in a pond. As WSOC reports<\/a>, the boy may have died trying to save his friend.<\/p>\n

The family of Abel Friday-Williams said he went to Bruce Meisner Park in Hickory on Thursday with a friend and an adult. Deputies say Friday-Williams and his friend had found their way to a nearby pond and waterfall off the park property and may have been unsupervised at the time of the drowning. Friday-Williams was pulled from the water around 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

Deputies are now investigating reports that the boy went into the water to help his friend. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A North Carolina family is mourning after a 7-year-old boy drowned in a pond. As WSOC reports, the boy may have died trying to save his friend. (WSOC\/CNN Newsource)<\/p>\n

“It breaks my heart because he saved his friend and lost his [life],” Friday-Williams’ aunt, Brianna Sledge, told WSOC.<\/p>\n

Hickory city leaders say the area is part of a wastewater treatment pump station. The city says it did not build the path leading to the falls, and it’s not intended for public use. <\/p>\n

Now, Friday-Williams’ family wants to warn others of the hidden dangers of the pond and waterfall where he drowned. Tara Rink told the outlet she was at the falls recently when a man jumped in to save a little girl. <\/p>\n

“I assisted in pulling them out because there’s no way I could have gotten them out, because the rocks are too slick. It’s nothing but slime. It was terrifying,” she said. <\/p>\n

Comment with Bubbles<\/p>\n

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City leaders say they will look into whether changes need to be made to the area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HICKORY, N.C. (WSOC\/CNN Newsource\/WKRC) \u2014 A North Carolina family is mourning after a 7-year-old boy drowned in a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-235330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-san-antonio","9":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","10":"tag-san-antonio-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}