Excerpts from wgem.com:

Two young brothers died after they fell into an icy pond while visiting their grandmother in Palatine. Hours after Palatine firefighters pulled the boys from the pond Wednesday afternoon both youths died at local hospitals. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office identified the boys as Romalice Brooks, 6, and Ro’Siah Brooks, 4.

Their causes of death remained under investigation Friday morning, said Johnnie Kearney, an investigator with the medical examiner’s office.

Their mother, Teghan Ivy, said her sons were visiting their grandmother with her Wednesday. Ivy said she was inside when she heard her sons screaming her name and looked to see them struggling in the pond’s icy waters. She tried to save her sons but also fell through the ice and couldn’t reach them.

“I heard them, ‘Mommy! Mommy!’ And, I came outside. I did the only thing I knew to do. I took off my shoes and I got on that ice and tried to get them. I didn’t make it to them,” Ivy told WLS-TV. “The ice cracked and I fell in, too.”

Both boys were submerged for nearly 20 minutes before rescue divers pulled them from the pond.

The siblings’ relatives are now raising money for their burial through a GoFundMe campaign that has a goal of raising $15,000.

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