DURHAM FIRE AND RESCUE Capt. Mike Lacasse, left, and firefighter Kira Lacasse rescue a dog that had fallen through ice into a pond Friday. Firefighter Korey Enman Curtis, hidden from view, assisted.
But volunteer rescuers proved ready to help a fourlegged friend Friday when they were dispatched to Meadow Road shortly before noon to deal with a dog that fell through ice.
The department’s public information officer, Michael Brillant, said a black Labrador retriever or mix fell through ice on a little old farm pond. Estimating the pond to be about 150 feet in diameter, Brillant said the dog was walking around on the property near where he lives and walked onto the ice. When the walked onto an area of the pond that was breaking up, he fell through and got stuck about 12 feet from shore.
Brillant believes either the dog’s owner or homeowner called 911 because the call was dispatched to Durham Fire and Rescue through the Androscoggin County dispatch.
An engine and an ambulance responded to the scene. Two firefighters donned water rescue suits. A third firefighter grabbed an approximately 16-foot ladder and extended it out to the dog so he could walk on the ladder.
The firefighters in the rescue suits walked into the pond and were able to break away ice with the weight of their bodies. They found a deep hole in the area the dog fell through. Brillant estimates they were in water about chest deep.
The rescuers got hold of the dog and assisted him out, but the dog didn’t want to be carried, so as soon as he found solid ground, “ he walked out on his own,” Brillant said.
The rescue took about 10 minutes, Brillant said, and the dog did not appeared to be injured, although it was shivering from the cold.
Brillant said he doesn’t remember the last time Durham Fire and Rescue performed a dog rescue, but when it comes to emergency situations, “you’re bound to get anything.”
Most of the personnel on this department are current or past dog owners, so when they do get a call like this, “we take it personally,” Brillant said. “We’re going to do the best we can,” in any situation, without putting rescue workers in any undue harm.
“It was a happy ending, which is what we like,” he said of the canine rescue.
dmoore@timesrecord.com
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