Samaritan Dives Into Icy Lake, Saves Doberman

February 20, 2001 
Kansas City, Missouri, USA

Even after the frantic owner had given up trying to rescue a 70-pound dog from frozen Shawnee Mission Lake, 16-year-old Daniel Rafner heard the dog yelping from a distance.  He ran to the scene and without a moment's hesitation stripped down to his underwear, jumped into the lake and swam to pooch who was about 50 feet from shore.

At that point, the 8-month-old Doberman True Blue was going under, with his legs already stiffened by the cold.  Rafner recounts, "He knew what I was there for, so he just grabbed my shoulder, and I sidestroked out of there."

Daniel Rafner, a swimmer with the Blue Valley Northwest Junior Varsity team, had been walking a dog at Shawnee Mission Park when he heard the commotion.  Apparently, True Blue had followed a smaller puppy out onto the ice while playing in an off-leash area of the park around 2:30 pm.

True Blue's weight had caused the ice to break under his paws, and he was unable to scramble back up.  The other dog, a Boston terrier named Sophie, did not fall in, and she safely returned to shore.

The owner of the dogs Fran Schlesinger considered jumping in after her dog but was afraid he would pull her down and drown them both.  Instead, she ran away in despair, being unable to watch her dog die.  She telephoned 911 from a passerby's cell phone.

Once Rafner had returned to shore with True Blue, he was treated by a MedAct ambulance crew.  True Blue was taken to the Northeast Animal hospital in Kansas City where he was treated for hypothermia and shock.  By 5:30 pm the dog's condition had stabilized, and his temperature had returned to within a few degrees of normal.

Veterinarian William Swoope said, "It's such a miracle because True would have been dead without that boy.  He would have been dead, and our hearts would have been broken."

§§§

^Articles