Chris MacRitchie was not out looking for a dog.
He was simply going through a Dunkin’ drive-thru in Berlin, Vermont, with his family when his son noticed movement near the water.
Something was struggling in the river.
It was a dog.
The animal was trapped in the frigid current of Stevens Branch, a tributary of the Winooski River, and appeared to be running out of strength.
Chris could have called for help and waited.
Instead, he got out of the car.
He walked into the freezing water
The January water was dangerously cold.
But Chris moved toward the dog anyway.
Video recorded by his son shows him entering the river and carefully making his way toward the struggling animal.
The dog was exhausted.
Once Chris reached her, he lifted her from the water and carried her back toward shore.
His wife was waiting.
She wrapped the soaked dog in a sweatshirt and helped warm her.
At that moment, the family still did not know who she belonged to.
They only knew she had been close to losing the fight.
Her name was Arizona
The rescued dog turned out to be Arizona, a 7-year-old mixed-breed rescue.
Her owner, Morgan Cerasoli, had been searching for her since the previous day.
Arizona had disappeared on January 9.
By January 10, she was in a freezing river with no obvious way out.
Then a child happened to look in the right direction at exactly the right moment.
The owner finally got the call
After the rescue, Chris was able to connect with Arizona’s family.
Morgan later described what he had done as extraordinarily selfless.
Arizona recovered well after the ordeal.
The story spread quickly because the rescue was caught on video, but the footage is only part of what makes it memorable.
There was no rescue crew already standing nearby.
No one had assigned Chris the job.
He saw a dog in trouble.
And he decided that waiting might cost her life.
One small decision changed the ending
That morning could have ended very differently.
Arizona had already spent a night away from home.
She was wet.
Cold.
And fighting a current that was slowly exhausting her.
Then a boy spotted her from a car.
His father stopped.
And a missing-dog story suddenly became a rescue story.
Chris later said he did what he hoped someone else would do if his own dog were in danger.
That may be the simplest part of the entire story.
He did not know Arizona.
He did not know her owner.
He just knew she needed someone to come into the water.
So he did.
