Victim's Family Wants to Know What Stalled Lincoln Pond Rescue

Date: Thursday, January 10, 1991
Section: METRO
Page: 34

By Peter S. Canellos, Globe Staff

The father of a woman who died Monday after falling through the ice of a Lincoln reservoir called yesterday for information about why it took authorities 90 minutes to rescue his daughter from water about 40 feet from shore.

Meanwhile, a witness to the Sunday accident cast doubt yesterday on officials' statements that delays were due to a miscommunication from the caller who reported the accident and to the failure of witnesses to lead police to the scene.

Elizabeth Whitbeck of Medford said she was walking on the wooded grounds of the DeCordova Museum Sunday afternoon when she heard a cry of help and saw Aureet Bar-Yam, 33, fall through the ice of Sandy Pond Reservoir.

Bar-Yam, a psychologist and counselor who had ventured onto thin ice to rescue her dog, was pulled from the reservoir after an estimated 90 minutes under the ice. She died a day later.

Whitbeck said that she was the first person to relay word of the accident: ''I ran up the path and I saw a man with a bicycle. I said a woman had fallen through the ice. He understood the situation. He asked questions.

"He went to DeCordova to report it. Obviously, the message must have gotten through to DeCordova because people came running down with ropes."

However, a Fire Department deputy said Tuesday that a caller from DeCordova reported a person had fallen on ice, not through it.

When rescue workers arrived at the museum, unprepared for a water rescue, they said they were surprised to find no one who could direct them to the person in distress. According to Police Chief Dominick Arena and Deputy Chief Charles Doyle, officers fanned out through the woods in search of the accident and found it only after a lot of bushwhacking.

Arena said yesterday, "The real problem is there was no one to direct us there. No one knew where it was. Our guys passed people who thought they looked a little cuckoo with stretchers and everything."

But Whitbeck said she met up with rescue workers in the woods between the accident scene and the DeCordova, clearly spelled out that a woman had fallen through the ice and directed them to the scene.

"I saw the EMT, told him where to go," she said. "I told him she was under the ice. He had a radio. He said" over the radio "that she was under the ice."

Whitbeck notes that times provided by police themselves show only 13 minutes between the time police arrived at DeCordova and when they reached the scene, three-quarters of a mile away.

Once police reached the scene, they found that witnesses had tied a rope around the waist of a young man and were directing him to the spot where Bar- Yam had fallen through. According to Whitbeck and numerous other witnesses, the rescue workers told them to stop their efforts and wait for divers.

By all accounts, it was at least another hour before divers entered the water.

Many witnesses say they believe they could have saved Bar-Yam an hour earlier, had police allowed them to continue searching.

Arena defended the decision to terminate the witnesses' rescue attempts, saying, "Why should we have other people overcome by hypothermia and drowned?"

He also defended his officers' delay in calling for a State Police helicopter. State Police said they were not initially called by Lincoln, and picked up reports of the accident only by radio. "There's nothing in our protocol that says you call the State Police if there's a body in the water," Arena said.

Arena gained national attention 22 years ago when, as Edgartown police chief, he handled the investigation into the drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne on Chappaquiddick Island after the crash of a car driven by Sen. Edward Kennedy. Since then, numerous books have questioned aspects of Arena's investigation.

"I'm not new to controversy," he said, adding that one of his first reactions to the Bar-Yam accident was, "Not someone in the water again."

This time, Arena said he has sent reports of the rescue to Lincoln selectmen and invited Bar-Yam's family to Lincoln for a full explanation of the rescue.

Zvi Bar-Yam, her father, said yesterday that the family is likely to accept Arena's offer.

"We are very, very disturbed by the news that she could have been saved and people didn't try to help her," he said. "We don't know what to do about it, but it adds a lot of grief."

Bar-Yam's ex-husband, Steve Hassan, said the family is considering bringing legal action against the town.

CANELL;01/09 CORCOR;01/10,21:52 LINCOL10

This article is © 1991 the Globe Newspaper Company

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