Ice break incident claims family dogs

A search and rescue operation northeast of Lovell Saturday turned to heartbreak for a Byron man when his three dogs perished after falling through the ice on a pond.

Big Horn County Sheriff Ken Blackburn said the county dispatch center received a “frantic” call late Saturday morning (10:49 a.m.) from CJ Sessions, who had been working his hunting dogs – a black lab and yellow lab and a golden retriever -- near Pond 6 in the Yellowtail Wildlife Habitat Management Area. Deputies responded quickly and discovered a “dire situation” where the dogs were in the water and/or trying to cling to the edge of the ice at the pond. Sessions had tried to rescue them but kept breaking through, the sheriff said.

By then, the sheriff’s department had already authorized the North Search and Rescue ice rescue team to respond, and the team deployed immediately.

“They got there extremely fast,” Blackburn said. “I’m sure it felt like hours for those people waiting, but they were on the move. They did a great job of deploying and getting in the water and getting out with boats and their ropes and their buoyancy stuff to get out to the dogs.”

The team, with Luke Leonhardt and Tyrel Harrison in the first boat and Carsten Waltjen and Jacob Newman in a second boat, rescued two of the three dogs, the two labs, from the water, but the pets did not survive.

“One was deceased, and the other one was still partially alive, and they got him back to shore,” the sheriff said. “They got back and handed off the dog to deputy Chris Strang, who also works for the livestock board as an investigator and is a part-time deputy for the sheriff’s department. He’s also a licensed veterinarian, and he performed life-saving maneuvers on the dog and emergency treatment on the dog, including CPR. That dog lived for a little while and then sadly passed away, probably due to the hypothermic conditions.

“He (Strang) has a real specialized set of skills and gave those dogs every possible chance they could have. A search ensued for the third animal, and as yet (as of Monday noon) we’ve been unable to find the third animal. The family was pretty distraught over it, obviously.”

Blackburn said the response was a matter of safety and compassion.

“Our job is primarily life safety, and we felt very strongly to try to give a hand to these people so that they didn’t endanger themselves further, and our team did great work,” he said. “These can be just as sad as when we have with human beings in them because you know the dogs have personality and they were part of this family. And so our heart goes out to the family and to the team. Even though it wasn’t successful, I thought they went above and beyond the call of duty, and they showed exemplary bravery with some nasty conditions.

“He (Sessions) tried to go in, and if I remember correctly, he had broken through the ice twice himself and as it was getting deeper, I’m sure he realized he couldn’t go any deeper. He called for help, and that’s when our team -- the search and rescue team -- responded to the call.”

Blackburn urged members of the public to be cautious around ice this time of year, noting, “Even though there’s some ice on the ponds, it’s been warming up during the day and getting a little colder at night, and that ice is not very thick. It’s very dangerous, and we don’t want that to happen to anybody. Hopefully, people will use their heads and recreate very carefully and responsibly.

“It’s right at that spot where there’s ice but there’s not enough to be safe, so hopefully people will be very cautious.”