Baltic Rescue

Baltic Rescue

One cold winter day, a dog walked to the edge of an icy river in Poland. Nobody knows for sure where the dog came from or what he was doing there. But he was about to have a big adventure.

Without warning, the ice that the dog was standing on broke away from the land. The dog was swept down the river on a sheet of ice half the size of a football field. The frightened dog looked for a way to get back to the shore, but he was trapped on the ice. The river was too cold for him to swim to safety.

Some firefighters saw the dog drifting down the river as he passed through their city. They tried to help him, but they couldn't reach him. The firefighters could only watch as the ice carried the dog farther down the river.

For three days, the dog drifted down the river on his raft of ice. He passed through several more towns. At least one other group of people saw him and tried to help him. But they weren't able to reach him, either.

Each day, the hungry dog grew colder, weaker, and more scared. His ice raft was slowly melting and breaking up into hundreds of smaller pieces. By now, the piece he was standing on was not much larger than a small bedroom. If he slipped off, he might become trapped under one of the many chunks of ice around him and drown.