Dog Trapped in Frozen River Miraculously Rescued by Passing Jogger

Sometimes all it takes is a coincidence to save a life. Such was the case with Darcy Pell, a jogger running through Pontefract Park in Yorkshire, England who spotted a puppy in need, trapped in the park’s icy lake. The weather in Yorkshire, a county in Northern England, has been dipping below freezing at night, and Pell was unusually well-equipped to navigate the frozen waters and be a hero to a stranger’s dog.

The Yorkshire Evening Post hosts cellphone footage of the rescue, which has gone viral in the UK and within the Pontefract community. The event occurred last Saturday in the afternoon and made Pell something of a recognizable face on local news and social media.

In the video, 31-year-old Pell can be seen wading into the frozen water carefully as onlookers stand awestruck, waiting as he cracks through the layer of ice leading to the trapped dog, whose owners and name have not been publicized as of this writing. After carefully reaching the dog in the lake, Pell grabs him and returns him back to safety and his family.

Pell specified that he is an experienced cold-water swimmer, highlighting the fact that his actions should not necessarily be repeated by others, as wading out into a frozen lake may be dangerous or life-threatening to the inexperienced. This essentially means that the dog lucked out by being within sight of a jogger with “some very specific skills,” so-to-speak.

The jogger modestly expanded when commenting on the rescue on a Facebook page for the Pontefract community: “Not a hero, just saw a dog in need.”