EXCLUSIVE: Boy who fell in icy Bronx River talks about his friend's rescue

SOUNDVIEW (WABC) -- Two boys were rescued from a frozen river and now we're hearing from one of the boys who nearly lost their lives.

"It was freezing. I couldn't feel my body," said John Paul Figueroa, a 6th grader.

By the time the FDNY arrived at the Bronx River in Soundview last Thursday evening, 13-year-old John Paul Figureoa had already fallen into the water, twice, and swam to shore.

"I climbed the rocks, I went in my jacket, because I left my phone in my jacket, so I called 911 since he couldn't get out," Figueroa said.

The 6th grader says he and his classmate Rahquan Brooks were trying to take a shortcut across the Bronx River in Concrete Plant Park, when the ice underneath his feet crumbled.

"We thought it was stable enough so that we could go on the ice, so we went on it, but we decided to come out and I stepped in and I fell," Figueroa said.

Figueroa fell clear through the ice, but managed to pull himself up on the rocks. But his buddy, Rahquan Brooks, was still stranded in the middle of the river.

"I was just telling him stay right there because he was going to jump from the ice to a rock but I thought he wouldn't make it, so I just told him to stay right there," Figueroa said.

Brooks stayed put, until Firefighter Kevin Hillman jumped in, and safely escorted him off the ice.

"We told him to grab on to the ladder, because he started climbing on the ladder, I approached him even more just to help him out of the water," Hillman said.

"Have you ever walked on that ice before?" Eyewitness News reporter Darla Miles asked.

"No," Figueroa said.

"Are you going to go back out there?" Miles asked.

"No," he said.

And for the FDNY heroics, the 13-year-old who learned the hard way has this to say: "Thank you for saving me and my friend."