Watching a dog struggle to stay afloat in icy water Vermont River, Chris McRitchie never hesitated.
He jumped into the cold water and walked over to the dog, gently pulling him to shore where his wife Erica dressed him in a sweatshirt. The dog's dramatic rescue Friday afternoon in Berlin, Vermont was captured on video by his son and shared widely on social media.
Ace McCritchie via AP
McCritchie's son, Ace, first spotted the dog as they were passing through the drive-thru of a nearby Dunkin' Donuts. When they reached the river embankment, the father of two felt he had no option but to save the dog.
“It was one of those moments that probably comes in everyone's life where you're going to have to make a decision… either go in the water and try to help him or there's an alternative,” McCritchie said. “So, I felt it was my responsibility to at least try to get this dog out of the river, because I have two dogs myself, and I would hope someone would do that for them if they were in that location.”
Ace McCritchie via AP
The video shows McCritchie – wearing a T-shirt, sweats and shoes – approaching the river embankment and the dog struggling to get out. He calls the dog first and his wife Erica can be heard encouraging him to save her.
McCritchie stepped slowly through the ice into the river, hearing a gasp as he advanced about 20 feet toward the dog, which was on the other side of a frozen tributary of the Winooski River. His wife repeatedly yells “Come on” to the dog and says “Oh, my God” as McCritchie lifts the dog, later identified as Arizona, out of the water and onto an icy embankment. He takes it to his wife.
“The only real stress I had about it was about not getting in the cold water. It was the depth. I didn't know if it was 20 feet deep or 2 feet deep,” McCritchie said. “When I moved forward and got on my feet and it was like waist-high, I was actually relieved by that. In my mind, during that moment, I thought, OK, it's not that bad. “Yeah, it's cold, but I think it's a very possible situation.”
After retrieving the dog, McCritchie called the dog's owner, Morgan Cerasoli, whose number was listed on the dog's tag.
Ace McCritchie via AP
Cerasoli said she had been searching since Thursday for her dog, a seven-year-old mutt who was originally rescued from the side of the road in South Carolina. She was on her way to pick up her daughter from school when she received a call from MacRitchie who said he had “pulled a drowning dog out of the river.” He wanted to confirm that it was his dog.
“I started crying and I told him, Oh God, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. -Let's take a turn and I'll be right back,'” she said as she sat beside Arizona during an interview. She added that the dog has mostly recovered, although testing revealed he suffered from Lyme disease. Was.
After being reunited with her dog, Cerasoli said she watched the video and was again brought to tears – over MacRitchie's exploits as well as the poor condition of Arizona at that moment.
He said of the rescue, “It's brave, it's selfless, it's admirable. It's everything I think we were meant to be on this earth.” “Sometimes it seems like that happens so rarely these days.”