By SANDRA M. KLEPACH
Akron Beacon Journal
AKRON, Ohio — Akron firefighters spent an hour Monday pulling a 70-pound dog from the icy waters of Summit Lake.
They got the call at 11:25 a.m. -- a German shepherd-collie mix was bobbing in a slushy patch on the east end of the lake. Fifteen minutes later, eight divers fought the wind and cold to get an ice sled 350 feet out to the dog.
“A few times, it just let out this shrieking yell like, ‘Please help me, I’m going in,’ “Lt. Larry Moore said. “It was a matter of minutes before he would have gone under.”
The canine rescue was the dive team’s third or fourth in the past 10 years, Moore said -- and Akron firefighter Frank Poletta’s second.
Despite encouraging calls, the panicking pooch initially paddled away from the sled, so Akron firefighter Cliff Musgrove swam in from another direction.
By then, “he finally realized that we were there to help him,” Moore said. “It was crying like a little baby.”
After a push by Musgrove, the shivering dog collapsed as soon as all fours hit the sled.
“I was hoping that we would get it to a thicker part of the ice and walk the dog off, but I don’t think it could have done that,” Poletta said. “The dog was really tired. I mean, it couldn’t do anything.”
Without a collar, all dogs are taken by the dog warden to the pound. Poletta hopes an owner or adoptive family will come to the rescue.
After all, “it feels good to help anybody,” he said.