Seeing a dog struggling to stay afloat on a frozen Vermont river, Chris MacRitchie never hesitated.
He jumped into the cold water and approached the dog, gently pulling it to shore as his wife, Erica, covered him with a sweatshirt. The dog’s dramatic rescue Friday afternoon in Berlin, Vermont, was captured on video by her son and shared spread on social networks.
MacRitchie’s son, Ace, first saw the dog as they drove by a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts. When they reached the river bank, the father of two felt he had no choice but to save the dog.
“It was like one of those moments that everybody probably goes through in their life, like you’re going to make a decision … either go into the water and try to help him or the alternative,” MacRitchie said. “So I felt compelled 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 if they were in that place.”
In the video, MacRitchie — wearing a T-shirt, sweats and boots — approaches the river embankment as he struggles to get the dog out. At first he calls out to the dog and can be heard encouraging his wife, Erica, to rescue him.
MacRitchie carefully crosses the ice and enters the river, walking about 20 feet toward the dog, which was on the other side of the frozen tributary of the Winooski River. His wife repeatedly yells “come on” to the dog and screams “Oh my God” as MacRitchie lifts the dog, later identified as Arizona, out of the water and onto the frozen embankment. He takes it to his wife.
“The only real stress I had with it was not getting into the cold water. It was depth. I didn’t know if it was 20 feet deep or 2 feet deep,” MacRitchie said. “When I broke through and got to my feet and it was like waist-high, I was really relieved. In my mind, at this point, I thought, OK, this isn’t so bad. Yes, it’s cold, but I think it’s a very doable situation.”
After retrieving the dog, MacRitchie called the dog’s owner, Morgan Cerasoli, whose number was listed on the dog tag.
Cerasoli said she had been searching for her dog since Thursday, a seven-year-old mutt who was originally rescued from the side of a road in South Carolina. As she was on her way to pick up her daughter from school, she got a call from MacRitchie, who said he had “pulled a drowned dog” out of the river. He wanted to confirm that it was his dog.
“I started crying, and I said, oh, my God, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. Let me take a spin and I’ll be right back,” she said in an interview as she sat next to Arizona. She said the dog has mostly recovered, although an exam showed she was suffering from Lyme disease.
After being reunited with her dog, Cerasoli said she watched the video and was brought to tears again — because of MacRitchie’s exploits and the dire situation in Arizona at the time.
“He is brave, he is selfless, he is commendable. I think it’s all about the fact that we were on Earth,” he said of the rescue. “Sometimes I find that very strange these days.”
