Boy And His Dog Die In Plunge Into Pond

By Anna Deem in News on Jan 10, 2010 8:00PM

At 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, eleven-year-old Ryan Rames left his southwest suburban Minooka home to walk Sammie, his 1-year-old pet Yorkshire-Shih tzu mix. Around 12:45 p.m., his family reported him missing. A set of human and animal prints were spotted near a water retention pond. At 1:42 p.m., authorities pulled Rames and his dog from the water, however both later died.

"It appears the boy and the dog traveled onto the ice and then as they neared the center, the ice gave way," the Grundy County coroner's office said to the Chicago Sun-Times. An aerator was running down the middle of the retention pond, causing a certain area of the pond to remain unfrozen, the coroner said to the Sun-Times. Danielle Vieshov, Rames' mother, said to the Sun-Times that Ryan "was the most loveable boy, and he loved everybody. We think that's what got him, we think he went after [Sammie]. He just loved that dog so much." Rames had four siblings and was a fifth-grader at Minooka Intermediate School, where he was on the wrestling and cross-country teams.