(DailyDig.com) – One of the town’s high-ranking leaders tragically died while rescuing his child from a frozen pond, and the community is in mourning.
The sheriff’s office reported that at around 6:30 in the morning of January 26, 51-year-old Kevin Howell and 4-year-old Sawyer were walking across a section of Etna Pond west of Carmel when they fell through the frozen surface.
After rescuing his son from the frigid water, the father instructed him to return home to fetch his mother, Katie Howell. According to the sheriff’s office, Sawyer sprinted to his family’s house, which is located around one-third of a mile away from the pond. His mother then contacted emergency services and hurried out to her husband, armed with an anchor to secure in the ice and an attached rope intended to rescue him.
In an effort to save her husband, Katie herself slipped into the frigid pond. As she struggled to get out, a detective from the sheriff’s office who had responded to her emergency call arrived, as stated by the agency. Even after Jordan Norton, the detective, crawled over the ice to save Katie Howell, Kevin remained missing.
Later on January 26, additional rescue workers discovered Howell in the water, and Norton returned Katie to her house. Divers from the Maine fisheries department collected Howell from the water and later declared him deceased.
Since then, Howell’s neighbors and coworkers have praised him as a hero for saving his son, Sawyer’s, life. Howell was described as an exceptional human being by the chairperson of the Carmel, Maine, governing council. He had immense pride in his son, Sawyer.
For over eight years, he oversaw the daily operations of the town, which was home to some 2,870 residents. While serving as an administrator for Carmel’s city civic service agencies, he also managed the family farm and a cedar furniture company in his spare time.
According to Howell’s buddy and sheriff, Troy Morton, Sawyer was even more important to him than his community.
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