The first call came in to Spotsylvania Fire and Rescue on a mild Monday morning: A Newfoundland hound named Bobo Bear had chased a duck onto a frozen pond and fallen in.
Bobo’s owner had tried, unsuccessfully, to rescue the dog with an inner tube and a sled.
By the time Capt. Paul Hemming and firefighters Thomas Hunt and Robby Springman arrived at the house on Marengo Drive, Bobo had exhausted himself. He clung whimpering to a patch of ice some 25 feet from shore.
A decade earlier, Hemming, then just a couple of years into his career as a firefighter, had rescued a dog from fire. Now he would pull one from ice.
He still remembers the details of his first canine rescue: How he’d entered the burning house through the backdoor and stumbled onto the dog as he made his way down the hallway. How the dog had perked up outside in the fresh air, then taken off into the woods, where her owners would find her later.
Hemming has long considered himself a dog person. He has two at home, pit bull rescues named Tucker and June, for whom he’d do just about anything.
They were not far from his thoughts as he and Hunt pulled on their cold water exposure suits, gathered their personal flotation devices and climbed into an inflatable boat called a rapid deployment craft.
They reached Bobo and hefted him in. Four others from Spotsylvania Fire and Rescue were waiting on shore to pull them back in using rope lines: Springman, Lt. Scott Flavin, firefighter Dennis Hulbert and Tim Malanka, a medic.
They dried off Bobo and helped load him into the back of his owner’s car for a trip to the veterinarian’s office.
For his part, Hemming was glad the department had invested in the training and equipment that made the rescue possible.
“I was just glad we could be there to help out the dog owner,” he said.
Less than 24 hours later, a yellow Lab named Tucker got stranded on an icy pond at Lake of the Woods.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office summoned Capt. Jeff Liebold and Aaron Lovell of the LOW Volunteer Fire Department just before 6:30 a.m. to a home on Rapidan Hills Road. The Lab stood in about 10 inches of frigid water surrounded by ice.
“He was scared and he wasn’t coming back,” Lovell said.
Lovell put on a cold water suit and crawled onto the ice with a tethered ladder extended out before him. Just before the firefighter reached the dog, the ice cracked and Lovell fell into the shallow water. Undeterred, he reached out, grabbed the dog and climbed back onto the ladder.
Liebold and two sheriff’s deputies pulled them back to shore, where the shivering animal was taken to the Locust Grove Veterinary Clinic for treatment.
Tucker, who was expected to make a full recovery, has since been reunited with his owners.
Lovell was doing just fine, too, thanks in no small part to the cold weather suit.
By day's end, he'd become a bit of a celebrity at Lake of the Woods. But he was quick to credit all those involved, including fire chief Bob Mars who made sure they had the equipment on hand to respond to such a rescue—rare as it was.
(Richmond.com - Feb 3, 2016)
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