Man jumps in freezing river to save stranger’s dog, Vermont video shows. ‘My hero’
.png "A man in Vermont saved a dog from a freezing river.")
A Vermont man is being praised after a video captured him going into a freezing river to save a dog.
Morgan Cerasoli, the dog’s owner, posted a video of the rescue on Facebook on Jan. 10. Previous posts on Cerasoli’s page show the dog, named Arizona, had been missing.
“Just go, go, go, go before he gets away,” a person is heard saying in the video before the man goes into the freezing river surrounded by snow.
The man, Chris MacRitchie, told the Associated Press that his son saw the dog in the Winooski River in Berlin while they were in the drive-thru at a Dunkin’.
“It was like one of those moments everyone probably has in their life like you’re going to make a decision,” MacRitchie told the Associated Press. “I felt I was obligated to at least try to fetch this dog out of the river, as I have two dogs myself, and I would hope someone would do that for them if they were in that spot.”
MacRitchie is seen in the video making his way across the river, with water up to his waist and his arms out toward the dog.
A woman is heard calling for the dog. Then, MacRitchie grabs the dog and carries it back to land, before someone wraps the dog in a coat.
“You’re good,” he’s heard saying.
The video was taken by MacRitchie’s son, according to the Associated Press. Then, it was posted online by Cerasoli, who MacRitchie contacted by calling a phone number on the dog’s tag.
“This man will forever be my Hero! Never told a stranger I love him so many times before. To some this may just be a man rescuing a dog, but to me, it’s a man rescuing an extension of my soul! The video of the incredible human who saved my girl,” Cerasoli wrote on Facebook.
Berlin is about a 40-mile drive southeast of Burlington.
This story was originally published January 19, 2025 at 4:46 PM with the headline "Man jumps in freezing river to save stranger’s dog, Vermont video shows. ‘My hero’."
