The Elmwood Park chief of police pulled off a daring rescue when a mother and child became stuck in the icy Passaic River.

Chief Michael Foligno says that he heard the mother’s screams and sprang into action. He took a kayak from a nearby gas station and clawed his way over the frozen water.

“The mother was screaming. She was saying she couldn’t hold the child anymore. I couldn’t sit still and do nothing,” he says.

The chief says that he got the mother and her child into the boat and was able to warm the freezing child.

A firefighter in a wetsuit then came and got all of them out of the river.

It was not yet clear how the mother and child ended up in the river.