Posted on 02/12/2026 5:47:46 AM PST by Governor Dinwiddie
Hugh Pinneo had just gotten home from high school and was dozing on the couch when his mother’s screams jolted him awake.
“I think there’s a dog drowning in the pond!” she shouted.
Pinneo, 18, rushed to a window and saw a dog struggling to stay afloat on the partially frozen pond behind their home in Chesapeake, Virginia. The top of the dog’s head was covered in ice as he flailed in the pond, which is about 20 feet deep.
Pinneo, a senior at Grassfield High School, threw on a jacket and shoes, and ran outside.
“My instinct kicked in, and I was like, ‘I’ve got to go save that dog,’” Pinneo said.
He grabbed a kayak from his backyard and sprinted to the pond, which is about an eighth of a mile long and 200 feet wide, he said. His mother handed him a paddle as he headed into the frigid water.
“I had to rush out into the water,” Pinneo said. “I was going really fast.”
The temperature that afternoon, this past Friday, was around 39 degrees. Pinneo paddled across the half-frozen pond to reach the pup, who was still struggling. Pinneo’s first attempt to lift the animal failed.
“I got you, I got you,” Pinneo reassured the dog. “It’s okay.”
Pinneo kept trying and managed to lift the pup — which he believes weighs about 35 pounds — by his fur and onto the kayak.
“I’m going to lift you, okay?” Pinneo said in a video of the rescue, his voice sounding short of breath.
The rescue was captured from Pinneo’s perspective, as he was wearing Meta smart glasses, which he used to take a hands-free video.
“I just wanted to have a video because maybe in the future I’d look back …
(Excerpt) Read more at dnyuz.com ...
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He just went from a “teen” to a man. Awesome guy.
A scared, thrashing, panicky dog with slippery, soaked fur, too, in an unstable rocking kayak. The kid is VERY lucky to be alive.
My brother-in-law wears them all the time. His look like the old military BCG’s!
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