Atlanta ice: Dying dog rescued from lake

By Ty Tagami

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A couple of morning commuters in rural south DeKalb County didn't hesitate Monday when they spotted a dog in trouble in the middle of an icy lake.

Matt Banta of Dunwoody and Sean O'Keefe of DeKalb are both fathers and had both just lectured their children about the dangers of thin ice on ponds, yet they still went to the water when they saw a large black and tan dog struggling in the middle of Norris Lake.

O'Keefe, who lives at the lake's edge, was driving by when he saw what at first looked like a deer on the ice. He stopped to snap a photo just in time to watch it break through.

He ran to the lake's edge and started knocking on doors for help. He saw his wife driving by with his 6-year-old daughter and hailed her by cellphone. Soon, they were both hurling rocks onto the ice, trying to break it, and calling the dog to them.

But it was struggling. "It was heart-wrenching to see that dog out there," O'Keefe said. "Every time he went under, you wondered, ‘Will he come back up?' "

That's when Banta drove by. He saw all the action -- and the O'Keefes' little girl -- and called 911 before running to help. He said he thought to himself: "Man, I'd hate to see this little girl watch a dog drown in front of her."

He and O'Keefe spotted an aluminum canoe and used it to hammer the ice, but when that didn't work, O'Keefe suggested to his wife that he get into the canoe and paddle out into the lake. No way, she told him.

Banta had listened to a radio news account that morning about two boys who died in an icy Gwinnett County lake last weekend. It shook him so much that he had lectured his three children about staying off the ice before dropping them off at school.

But now, a dog was drowning in front of him, and his adrenalin was flowing, he said. He volunteered to man the canoe and began pushing himself along a narrow channel of water with the help of a shovel, the O'Keefes throwing rocks ahead of him to help him break the ice.

Banta unnerved people on the shore when he stood up a couple times, rocking the canoe; O'Keefe yelled at him to sit down. When he reached the dog, Banta worried it might bite him. O'Keefe worried that its weight might tip the canoe as Banta struggled to haul in his catch.

But the dog, a full-blooded German shepherd, was eager to get on board when Banta grabbed the back of its neck. It kicked with its hind legs to help propel itself to safety, Banta said. "He was great; very calm," he said. "He was a beautiful dog."

There was one more sketchy moment: The ice channel was too narrow to turn the boat, so Banta had to step over the dog to get to the other side of the boat and paddle it to shore. He said the canoe nearly tipped over. All told, the rescue took about half an hour.

Melissa O'Keefe, Sean's wife, drove the dog to the Lithonia Animal Hospital. She said it licked her hand when they got there. An assistant opened the doors early and quickly got the animal into a warm bath.

Dr. Eric Cline said the dog was doing fine Monday afternoon, eating food and drinking water. The German shepherd's temperature was only a couple of degrees below the normal 100.5 for a dog upon arrival, and Cline speculates that the drive in a warm car -- and the quick rescue from the lake -- helped. "I think if he'd been in there another 10 minutes, he'd have been a goner," he said.

The dog had no collar, so it was initially unclear who owned it.

But Akil Jordan tracked down his dog through word of mouth in the neighborhood. A college student, he said the dog -- it's name is Max -- darted out of the garage in the morning when he drove to school. Max has done this before but usually returns, so when Jordan came back from class around noon he was alarmed. He said he called the DeKalb animal shelter and was told about the rescue. So he walked around Norris Lake until he found someone who knew what happened -- and where the dog was taken.

"I got him back, thank God," Jordan said. "It's a horrible story with a wonderful ending." He said O'Keefe told him what Banta did to save Max.

"He risked his life rescuing my dog," Jordan said.