When you’re on duty and you’re driving through Montana in your delivery truck, on the icy back roads, and you hear a call for help coming out of nowhere, you definitely have the instinct to pull over. Maybe not everyone would have, but Ryan Arens didn’t think twice about pulling the handbrake and getting out of his UPS truck. He needed to see what was going on. The man then spotted a dog stuck in an icy pond, desperate for help. The brave courier, a great animal lover and person with a big heart, immediately came to his aid.
“It sounded like a cry for help,” the courier recalled, “but I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Then everything became clearer: A dog had gotten stuck in an icy pond and was fighting for its life. Arens, who owns two dogs himself, knew something was wrong: although it wasn’t the coldest day of the year, it didn’t seem normal to see a dog swimming in a pond in those temperatures.
Arens took off his uniform and hat and walked up to the unfortunate animal. Another man tried to approach the dog with a boat; Arens threw himself into the water, holding onto the boat with one hand and trying to get a grip on the dog. The fear was great, the man admitted, especially since he could have slipped in that situation, risking his own life. Fortunately, the dog had a collar and Arens was able to pull him to him by it to save them.
Once they were safe, neighbors in the area immediately warmed the two with blankets, hot water and a portable stove. One of the neighbors, fortunately a retired veterinarian, knew exactly what to do under the circumstances. The dog would almost certainly have had a heart attack if he had stayed in the ice water a few minutes longer.
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