Tuesday, April 2, 2013

The Value of Human Life: A Man and a Dog

Be strong and very courageous...
Joshua 1:7
 
Somewhere in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, tonight, a mother is hugging her two daughters, and thanking God for a 27-year-old man named Adam and a Labrador retriever/husky mix dog named Rocky.  A family outing on Easter Sunday would have been a tragedy if not for this unlikely pair of heroes.

Two sisters, ages 9 and 10, were tobogganing in a riverside park when their sled went too far and ended up on the ice.  When the girls tried to get back to shore, the ice broke and the older girl went into the water.  Adam and his dog were walking on a nearby bridge and heard the screams.  When they reached the river, both girls were in the water.  He was able to pull the younger girl up onto the ice, but could not reach the older one.  The 10-year-old was being carried downstream, her head bobbing in and out of the icy water.

As he tried to get closer to her, the ice gave way, tumbling Adam and Rocky into the river.  Adam pushed the dog back up on the ice and then used the dog and the leash to pull himself up.  Right at this point would be the time when some people would have said, "Hey, I did my best - my dog and I don't need to die today," and would have turned back.  Not this man.  
 
Running further down river to where the girl was, Adam urged his dog to get back in the river while he held on firmly to the leash.  The dog jumped in right next to the child, who got both hands on Rocky's leash. Adam called the dog, and he swam back to his master, getting close enough for him to grab both the dog's collar and the girls arm and drag them away from the water's edge.

It goes without saying that things would have gone very differently if Adam and Rocky had not been willing to come down off that bridge on Sunday.  They could have ignored the screams and simply walked away.  But Adam saw two defenseless little girls - two human lives that were about to be snuffed out, and he wasn't about to let it happen without a fight.

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