GREAT FALLS - A dog that fell through the ice into the Missouri River was rescued when Black Eagle firefighters threw the dog a rope from a train trestle.
Firefighter Jason McAllister estimated the dog had been in the river for about 30 minutes Saturday afternoon and had completely submerged a few times. Temperatures were about 13 degrees below zero at the time.
The dog had enough strength to bite down on a rope and firefighters pulled the dog about 100 yards before it walked the rest of the way to shore with icicles hanging from its fur.
The dog’s owners rushed the dog to a local veterinarian. McAllister says the dog was expected to survive.
Dog saved after fall onto icy Missouri
A young dog, injured and hypothermic, spent two hours on the frozen Missouri River Wednesday after plunging 60 feet off the 9th Street bridge before being saved by a firefighter who walked onto the perilous ice clad in a rescue suit and tethered to a rope.
The dog, a male black and brown mixed breed weighing about 30 pounds, suffered nerve damage in its right leg and a broken toe on its right paw, but is expected to fully recover, said Cody Strandbakke, an animal control officer for the city of Great Falls.
It was slightly hypothermic and “extremely scared” as it was rushed to a veterinarian following the rescue.
Strandbakke was surprised the dog survived.
“That’s quite a jump, and to fall on the ice,” he said.
It was the second time a dog has been rescued from the icy grasp of the Mighty Mo in the past five days. On Dec. 20, Black Eagle firefighters chucked a rope to a German shepherd, which bit down and was pulled to safety.
“If your animal goes on the ice don’t go chasing him,” Great Falls Fire Marshal Doug Bennyhoff warned.
Dozens of onlookers, in parked cars on both sides of the river, watched the dramatic rescue unfold over the noon hour in the middle of the busy bridge as biting wind chills whipped the rescuers.
Firefighters, standing near the middle of the bridge, made repeated attempts with a rope to lasso the injured dog, which was lying on the ice 60 feet below.
“We were trying to get a loop around it and drag it over to the edge,” Bennyhoff said.
The rope scared the dog, prompting it to move almost directly below the bridge next to a concrete support and farther out of reach.
Finally, after almost two hours, firefighter Jason Furr, wearing a big orange ice rescue suit called a Gumby, was assigned to walk from the river bank across the ice to rescue the freezing mutt.
Risking the safety of a firefighter is a last resort, Bennyhoff said.
A rope was tied around Furr, and the firefighters on the bridge held onto the other end as he made the dangerous trip.
“He picked up the dog and brought him back,” Bennyhoff said.
The dog was running at large after getting loose from a yard at a home where his out-of-town owners were staying, Strandbakke said. The owners, who were searching for the dog, said “oh no” when they spotted the fire trucks on the bridge, he said.
A passerby called in the dog’s leap from the bridge from a cell phone at about noon, authorities said. The dog was rescued at 2 p.m. Bennyhoff said the dog, whose name was Shamas, apparently jumped over the railing after getting spooked.
The names of the owners were not released but their voices could be heard from shore as they desperately called out the dog’s name on the bridge, hoping to coax it toward the loop lying on the ice.
“He’s going home with his owners,” Strandbakke said. “Very exciting.”
