A four-year-old boy playing near a southern Manitoba creek Monday afternoon fell in when the snow and ice he was on broke away, and was rescued by his mother after the current pulled him away.

The boy and his six-year-old brother were playing in their yard southeast of Winkler — about 100 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg — when they moved past some trees toward the creek without permission, Manitoba RCMP said in a Tuesday news release.

When the four-year-old fell in, his brother ran to home to get their mother. When she got to the creek, she couldn’t see the boy, who had been pulled by the current through a culvert, RCMP said.

She found him after running across the road. The mother, who didn’t know how to swim, jumped into the creek and pulled the boy out with the help of a neighbour.

She performed CPR and successfully revived her son while a neighbour called 911.

“She she was brave and she acted quickly, which probably saved the her son,” RCMP Cpl. Melanie Roussel said in an interview Tuesday afternoon.

But the mom is fortunate as well, because “things can happen too if you jump in freezing water as a rescuer,” said Roussel.

The water would have been very cold, and the air temperature was only 1 C at the time, she said.

The child, who was alert when paramedics arrived, was treated at the scene and then airlifted to hospital in Winnipeg, the RCMP news release said.

At last report, he was in stable condition.

Roussel said in her 20-year policing career, she’s rarely come across incidents like this where the outcome wasn’t tragic.

“This is very unusual,” she said.

Manitoba RCMP are urging people to stay away from the edges of streams, rivers, ponds and lakes, as the combination of melting ice and additional rain or snow can make levels higher and faster, and destabilize the banks.