Lynn McGarvey risked her life to save a dog she doesn't know from drowning in icy waters. On Monday afternoon the nurse was at home when a man urgently knocked at her front door. He asked her if she had a black dog and she told him her four dogs were in her backyard. He then told her there was a dog who had fallen through the ice and was in trouble. 

Lynn said she ran around her Kalispell, Montana neighborhood trying to find someone with a rope or ladder to slide out onto the ice but she could not find anyone. After a few minutes, she found two young men offered her a rope. She went behind her property to the water where the dog was trapped. 

"We had called 911 about three times, but no one had shown up," Lynn told the Daily Inter lake. "The other lady said the dog had been in the water for 15 minutes, and you could tell he was exhausted. That was when I said, 'I'm not going to witness this.'"

She put on a life jacket, tied the rope around her waist and had the people helping her hold the other end of of the rope. She waded out into the icy water to the dog. When she reached him he growled a little bit so she went up behind him and put the leash underneath his collar and slid it through. She then pulled to dog towards her and the pair were pulled back to shore.

Back on land, Lynn wrapped the dog up in a blanket and warmed him back up. Lynn said. "I would do it again, for anyone or any animal - wild or tame - any time. That’s just me."

The dog was happily reunited with his worried owner soon after. Apparently the dog had escaped his home before being spotted in in the water.

(Photo above is not the dog rescued in this story.)

Via

• ice
• lake
• Kalispell
• Montana