Good Samaritans rescue dogs from drowning in Susquehanna River: 'He was struggling'

PERRYVILLE, Md. —  From her waterfront terrace at the Owens Landing Court condominiums in Perryville, Margarette Gamache first noticed the stray dogs.

“There was three big dogs with no collars and no people,” Margarette told us, “So my first thought was ‘strangers in the neighborhood’, but then they went down to the pier.”

Margarette called on her husband, Tom, to check out the lost pets, but he had no idea what lay in store.

“When I first saw the dogs, they were still on the top of the ramp and then I saw the brown dog,” Tom recalled, “He went down the third slip in and he jumps in. It’s a day at the beach. He’s swimming off. Well, the older dog, which was a lab, a real husky lab, that dog jumped in to follow him and when I got down on the dock, he was struggling.”

With the help of some other neighbors, Tom worked frantically to pull the lab to safety, while a Perryville police officer with the help of a man in a passing fishing boat who had spotted the commotion, focused their efforts on saving the other dog, which ended up struggling to stay afloat for nearly half an hour.

Good Samaritans who happened to be in the right place at the right time pulled the animals from the river in the nick of time.

“If nobody was out here to see that happen, they could have been swimming in there and drown,” said Margarette.

“With nobody knowing,” added her husband.

“With nobody even knowing, and they would have ended up being missing dogs in the area,” she noted.

“Floated up in the marina like some jumpers from the bridge,” he replied.