Man and dog rescued from lake in Sterling after falling through ice

STERLING, Mass. — Firefighters saved a man and his dog trapped in the icy waters of a freezing lake in Sterling in Sunday.

The fire department says the dog ran onto the lake, but the ice wasn’t thick enough to hold his weight. Then his owner went in with a canoe to try to save their dog, but that canoe then flipped over.

“The person who fell through did the right thing,” said Jim Emerton of the Sterling Fire Department. “He got out and distributed his weight so that it wasn’t all in one place and lay kind of still until we could get something to him and pull him back out that way.”

Emerton says firefighters rushed to the scene with their rescue truck to save both the man and his dog stuck in the icy lake. They were able to use a rescue sled and suits made for situations like Sunday’s.

“We’ve got ways to connect ourselves to the shore so we can be pulled back [if] need be,” Emerton said. “The sleeves have ice picks in them. If we need to be able to pull ourselves along on the ice, we can do that.”

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Emerton says firefighters used ice picks to make their way to the victims before eventually getting them ashore safely, something that was a nerve-wracking scene for people to witness.

“I fell through the ice when I was a kid, so I have that sense of things now,” said Judy Doherty, a neighbor.

Neighbors in Sterling say usually January is cold enough to walk on that lake as the ice is much thicker, so they understand why the dog may have been mistaken.

“It’s shallow in some parts, so if you test out the edge, we ice skate on it often and it’s a pleasure,” Doherty said. “So we don’t want people to miss out on sports if they can be careful.

But with unseasonably warm temperatures recently, fire crews warn to stay away from those lakes. Luckily, in this case, both the man and his dog will be okay.

“It’s a terrible thing to have the pet go in, but it’s even worse to have a human go in,” Emerton said. “And then you’re the patient too, put[ting] people at risk trying to get you out of there. You want to be careful this time of year, there’s just no ice out there right now.”

If someone you know or your pet gets stuck on an icy lake, you should call 911 to get EMS and firefighters out since they have the necessary equipment to make a safe rescue.

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