A small town in Maine is grieving after one of its top government officials died while lifting his son out of an icy pond into which they both fell.
Kevin Howell’s colleagues and neighbors have since hailed the late father as a hero whose actions saved the life of his four-year-old boy, Sawyer.
“Kevin was a wonderful, wonderful … standout guy,” the chairperson of the governing council in Carmel, Maine, said of Howell to the Portland Press Herald. “He was so proud of Sawyer.”
Howell, 51, and Sawyer had taken a walk and were crossing a part of Etna pond outside Carmel when they plunged through the ice at about 6.30am Friday, the local sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post.
The father was able to lift his son out of the icy water and told him to go home and get his mother, Howell’s wife, Katie. Sawyer ran to his family’s home, which is about a third of a mile from the pond, and his mom called for emergency help before sprinting out to her husband with an anchor and a rope meant to pull him out, the sheriff’s office said.
Katie Howell then fell into the icy pond herself while trying to aid Sawyer’s father, and she was struggling to get out when a sheriff’s office detective responding to her call arrived, according to the agency’s statement. The detective, Jordan Norton, crawled across the ice to rescue Katie Howell, but there was no sign of Kevin.
Norton brought Katie Howell back home to Sawyer while other emergency responders found Howell in the water later on Friday afternoon. Divers with Maine’s fisheries and wildlife department retrieved Howell, and he was pronounced dead.
Kevin Howell’s death came after he and Katie had moved to Carmel – about 60 miles (97km) to the north-east of Maine’s capital, Augusta – in 2014, according to a town webpage.
He served as town manager for the community of about 2,870 people for about eight years. In his government role, he oversaw the operations of Carmel’s public services departments, and in his personal time he ran a cedar furniture business as well as a family farm.
Howell’s accomplishments in office included the creation of a town landing, the construction of a new playground and revitalizing an annual fall community festival named Carmel Days.
“He was such a perfect person for that town manager role,” Daniel Frye, the chairperson of Carmel’s governing board, said to the Press Herald. “He always wanted to make the town better.”
Ethan Dysart, a friend and neighbor of Kevin Howell who spoke with the Press Herald, added: “He was the best fit, honestly, for a town manager. He always dropped everything he had going to make sure things were taken care of for the town. He was always coming up with new ideas … [that] really brought the community together.”
Despite Howell’s devotion to his town, Sawyer meant even more to him, his friend and local sheriff Troy Morton said.
“Every time I spoke with him,” Morton told the Press Herald, “he shared stories of his son and how [quickly] he learned so many things.”