Dog is a ‘hero’ for alerting owner to man who fell through ice

STONEHAM, Mass. — Thomas Walsh is calling his dog Diesel a hero for alerting him to a man struggling in Quarter Mile Pond Wednesday.

“He’s the hero today, because without him, seeing or hearing him I would have just kept walking,” said Walsh.

Walsh says he had his earbuds in while walking his dog, so he never would have known this man was in trouble.

“The dog alerted me that there was something going on in that water,” said Walsh.

When Diesel started barking, Walsh found a young man stuck in the middle of the pond.

He says that man was riding his bike and rode right onto the ice before falling through.

“Ripping across right in the middle, he went right through, I’m surprised he didn’t go through near the edge,” said Walsh.

Walsh then called 911 while trying to help this man.

“I told him to try to relax, catch your breath because he was panicking, you know what I mean,” said Walsh. “My instinct was to go in and help him, I’m a great swimmer but you can’t do that in the winter time.”

So Walsh tried coaching the 22-year-old to scoot across the ice closer to shore, but he kept falling through.

“When he fell in that time there was another fellow walking through the woods, and I tied the dog to a tree and I grabbed a big branch from another tree and we threw it in and he was kinda too weak to grab onto it and pull it,” said Walsh. “So he finally held on with his other hand and we kinda just dragged him through the water and got him up on shore.”

First responders then took this man to the hospital, where he’s expected to be okay all thanks to Walsh and his alert dog.

“He’s the hero today, nobody else,” said Walsh.

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