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Hubbard officer risks his safety to rescue dog from icy pond
HUBBARD
A Hubbard woman is grateful for a police officer who risked his safety to save her beloved dog, Jake, after the dog fell through an ice-covered pond Saturday morning.
“He went above and beyond the call of duty,” said Mary Ann Bradbury, Jake’s owner.
Bradbury was watching Jake, a large Catahoula Leopard dog who is about 14 years old, from inside her house as he was searching for a place to relieve himself in her yard.
He wandered out of sight, she said. She walked outside but couldn’t find him, even after driving up and down the street.
“He’s like family,” Bradbury said.
When she returned home, her neighbor told her the dog had fallen through a large, ice-covered pond nearby on Timber Point Boulevard. The temperature was below freezing.
Once Bradbury arrived at the pond, she saw her dog was struggling to stay afloat in the center of the pond.
Jake kept trying to climb up the ice, but the ice kept breaking, Bradbury said.
“I told my neighbor, ‘I can’t watch him die like this,’” she said.
Police arrived and tried to retrieve the dog from the shore by throwing a rope with a life preserver ring attached, but it wasn’t working.
The dog had been in the cold water for about 15 minutes at that point, Bradbury said.
So Hubbard Sgt. Bill Fisher put two life preserver rings under his arm and walked out on the pond, Bradbury said. He got in the cold water, which Bradbury said is deep enough to go over a person’s head, and retrieved the dog.
“The poor thing was shivering like crazy,” Bradbury said.
Once the dog was safe, Bradbury said another officer, Erik Bateman, carried the dog in the house and blow-dried him.
The officers went back to work after, and Bateman returned again to check on the dog, she said.
“I thank them from the bottom of my heart for what they did,” she said.
The Hubbard Police Department posted on its Facebook page: “One of our police officers on the scene remarked that it stood out to him as one of the most selfless acts he had seen from another police officer.”
Police Chief James Taafe said he is proud of his officers.
Bradbury reported that Jake is doing much better now.