‘It Was Very Emotional’: Dog Tied to a Rock and Thrown Into Freezing River Rescued by Heroic Stranger

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When a passerby noticed a dog, barely alive and barely visible above the surface of a river in Nottinghamshire, England, she made a snap decision to intervene by dragging her to safety. It was a decision that would ultimately save the dog’s life.

According to the Independent, the exhausted Belgian shepherd, named Bella, had a plastic bag containing a large, heavy rock tied to the leash around her neck. She had been weighed down and left in the water to drown.

On Jan. 6, 2020, Jane Harper was walking by the River Trent in the English village of Farndon when her friend, Joanne Bellamy, exclaimed that she could see a dog’s head bobbing above the water. Amid a surge of adrenaline, Harper handed her own dogs to Bellamy and climbed into the river to reach Bella.

Bella’s good Samaritan admitted that upon first glance she feared the dog had already lost the fight.

Photo courtesy of Nottinghamshire Police

“The water was so murky, I couldn’t pull her out,” Harper explained to the Daily Mail. “I saw a lead wrapped around her leg, and a blue line that was leading down to something submerged.”

“I got my arm underneath her and tried to lift her up,” Harper continued. “I imagine she literally fought to get her head above water and managed to rest it on a step.”

Photo courtesy of Nottinghamshire Police

Harper struggled to lift the weight of the exhausted dog and eventually managed to winch her out of the water and onto the concrete steps of the riverbank. That’s when she discovered the bag containing the large rock that was weighing Bella down affixed to the end of her leash.

Harrowing photos shared online depict Harper’s effort to drag Bella’s cold, near-lifeless body out of the freezing water. “She’s a big, heavy dog,” Harper explained in an interview with BBC Nottinghamshire. “Then another dog walker came and got her on to the grass, and wrapped her in his jumper.”

Photo courtesy of Nottinghamshire Police

“Another lady came running out with towels. It was a real community effort. She was absolutely frozen; we all thought she would die,” Harper added, describing the group rescue effort as “very emotional.”

Bella was whisked to a nearby veterinarian for emergency care, where she was identified by her microchip.

“This was an evil and nasty thing to do to this poor dog,” said Police Constable Adam Pace, as quoted in a Facebook post from the Nottinghamshire Police. “We are lucky that the kind member of the public found and rescued her.”

The authorities immediately appealed for leads from any members of the public who may have caught this horrendous act of cruelty on camera. The Nottinghamshire authorities later arrested a 32-year-old man and 31-year-old woman on suspicion of animal cruelty offenses.

Photo courtesy of Nottinghamshire Police

“How could anyone do this to her,” Harper questioned, as per the Daily Mail. “I don’t know how long she had been in the water but I don’t think she could have survived much longer. It was just so cruel.”

Thanks to Harper’s serendipitous intervention, Bella’s carers have hope that the sweet dog will make a full recovery.

“Whilst the dog is still quite poorly, she has been showing some encouraging signs by eating,” Pace said in a Facebook update on Bella’s condition, “so hopefully she will be on the mend.”

Accompanying footage shows Bella tucking into a bowl of food with a hearty appetite despite her traumatic ordeal. As of Jan. 13, 2020, Bella remains in the care of a loving expert contingent that will oversee her ongoing recovery.

Video courtesy of Nottinghamshire Police