CHARLESTON (AP) — A funeral service is scheduled Saturday for a 7-year-old Danville boy who died a week after falling into the Coal River.

Police say Mark Clegg fell into the river behind his home on Dec. 29 while trying to retrieve a ball. Neighbors pulled him out of the river about half a mile downstream from where he fell. The boy was in the water for about 30 minutes.

Clegg died Tuesday at a Charleston hospital.

A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday at Handley Funeral Home in Danville.

Clegg was reportedly playing ball with his 5-year-old brother when the ball was swept into the Coal River.

The older boy fell from the river's embankment into the nearly-freezing water below attempting to retrieve the ball. The incident took place near Phipps Avenue, in Danville.

According to Director of Emergency Management Greg Lay, soon after Mark fell into the water, the young boy's father arrived home and found his 5-year-old son crying that his older brother had fallen into the river.

As soon as the information was heard on the scanner, area residents began scouting the river for the boy.

Paul Townsley told reporters that he heard about the emergency on his police scanner at about 1:20 p.m., and immediately went to the riverbank behind his shop to look for the boy.

Townsley said he grabbed the boy and tried to lift him several times, but Clegg was dragged away from him by the swift current.

He said another man entered the water downstream from his shop to catch the boy.

That man has been indemnified as Larry Adkins.

Adkins told reporters that he had bystanders with better vantage points keep track of the boy.

Once Adkins had the child in his arms, though, he says he found it difficult to get out of the water.

Soon, he was joined by three other men, workers at a local cable repair shop.

“It was me and two other guys from work and we saw a guy inside the water and two women on the riverbank pointing,” says Jonathan Wilson, who was one of three men from J& R Cable who heard the information on the scanner and immediately went in search of the boy.

Wilson said when he and his coworkers first heard the emergency call on the police scanner, they ran to the river near their Danville shop but realized the boy would be farther downriver.

The other two men from J&R Cable have been identified as Jake Ferrell and Adam Lovejoy.

“Me and Jake and Adam grabbed an arm and pulled him to shore,” Wilson said.

According to officials, the Coal River was elevated to 13-feet Tuesday, with temperatures just above freezing.

“I started CPR on him as soon as we pulled him out of the water. I was doing everything I could think of to keep him alive; we didn’t know how long he had been in the water,” said Wilson, who had received emergency responder training when he worked with the Van Fire Department.

According to eyewitness accounts, when Clegg was pulled from the river, he was not wearing shoes, and dressed in a t-shirt, light-weight blue jacket, sweat pants, and white socks.

He was transported to Boone Memorial Hospital in hopes that the river's near-freezing temperatures might have placed the boy's body in a cyrogenic-state.

Clegg was then transferred by HealthNet helicopter to Charleston Area Medical Center.

—Reports from Joanie Newman of The Coal Valley News and from the Charleston Daily Mail were used in this article.