Story By: Gheorghi Caraseni, Sub Editor: Alex Cope, Agency: Central European News
Video Credit: CEN/@astr_online
This is the moment a shirtless man ignores the risk to himself as he climbs into a river to save a drowning dog.
The life-saving scene took place in the city of Astrkhan in the Astrakhan Oblast of south-western Russia where a man did not hesitate to get into the icy water of one of the cities rivers to save a dog.
Reportedly the man was a passerby who had simply spotted the dog that was struggling after falling through broken ice and was scrambling to climb free.
Without hesitating, he simply took off his clothes and climbed into the water. The scene was captured on a video which was later shared on social media.
The frames show the shirtless man, later identified as Alexander Neshin, 32, walking towards the dog which was is trapped in the frozen ice. In order to get to the dog, he has to break the ice and move other pieces out of the way.
The scene had a happy ending when the ice was finally cleared and the man was able to grab the dog and push it to the shore with a voice behind the camera shouting: “We have saved it!”.
Climbing onto ice in a river is always a risk because if the man had slipped or felt faint from the ice-cold water, he could easily have been swept underneath the ice flow and drowned.
The brave man who saved the dog’s life was modest when tracked down and asked for a comment, saying that he had not had time to think about whether it might be dangerous for himself as he plunged into the icy cold water, and had simply done it.
He said: “While we were walking on the embankment of the Kutum river, I spotted that the stray dog was walking alongside us.
“It was with us for a while, and then it wandered down to the river onto the ice and then my daughter saw that the dog had fallen through and told me about it. I could see that it was clearly drowning, so I decided to help it.”
Reportedly the dog made a full recovery although the man had several cuts on his feet caused by sharp objects at the bottom of the river.
According to Vladimir Burmatov, the Head of the State Duma Committee on Ecology and Environmental Protection, the man deserves a reward. He said: “We will definitely consider this case because people like this deserve to be honoured and it must be better publicised. Not every person would act the same way in a similar situation.”
Lots of netizens appreciated the man’s bravery and said he is a “man with a big heart”.
One netizen named ‘Tatyana Rytova’ wrote: “This is a brave deed! Well done! I wish we had more people like this”.
Another one named ‘Kirill Berdyshev’ wrote: “Good job. You deserve a good whiskey!”.
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