On March 24th in Templeton, Pennsylvania, Mya Varner watched her dog, Bart, fall halfway through the ice and become trapped. The 10-year-old mix couldn’t escape.
Maya couldn’t watch as her dog struggled so she risked her life as she ventured out on to the ice to save him. Unfortunately the ice was too thin to hold her and it broke away dropping her into shoulder-high freezing water. She describes how the water put her into shock.
“It plunged me into the water up to my shoulders. Instant shock. It took my breath away. I was devastated. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t yell. I couldn’t swim. I couldn’t do anything,” Varner explains.
As Bart struggled to stay afloat on her shoulders, Varner’s boyfriend, Brock Headland, stomped through the ice making sure he had footing at the bottom of the pond. He luckily managed to pull the two to safety.
Although shaken, Varner doesn’t know how the outcome would have been if her boyfriend wasn’t there.
“I thank God every day that he was with me,” she says.
This serves as a reminder to everyone that as Spring arrives and the temperatures go up, the ice is melting on all bodies of water. Keep a close eye on your furry loved ones so that they won’t put themselves, and you, in danger.
