LINCOLN, Maine — Firefighters on Wednesday lauded the heart and courage, though not the patience, of a 68-year-old local man who braved the icy water of Cold Stream Pond to rescue a neighbor’s dog and ended up needing to be rescued himself.
Using a thick stick from a fallen tree, Gerold Bickford knocked a pathway he said was about 60 feet long through inch-thick ice on Tuesday to free a black Labrador retriever that had fallen through and was trapped. Bickford waded about 40 feet back to shore in waist-deep water before his own numbed legs almost gave out, said Dan Summers, Lincoln’s director of public safety.
“I had been in the water 20 to 25 minutes then,” Bickford said Wednesday. “There was a big rock in front of me, and by then my legs were so numb from the waist down that I could not lift my leg to get over it. I just couldn’t do it.”
Bickford had, however, twice called 911 at about 11:40 a.m. before venturing into the water. The first rescuers to arrive, Lincoln fire Capt. Cory Stratton and firefighter-engineer David Slomienski, got there just before Bickford’s legs gave out and helped him to shore. Bickford required only some warming at the scene and suffered some tingling in his legs overnight before recovering fully, he and Summers said.
Still, Bickford should have waited for firefighters and let them rescue the dog, Summers said.
“His heart was in the right place and he didn’t want to see the dog get hurt. I can’t blame the guy for what he did. I would probably do the same thing,” said Capt. Kenneth Goslin, who witnessed the rescue. “But as soon as Cory got out to him, his legs buckled.”
“It was perfect timing,” Goslin added. “It’s about the best ending there could be.”
The incident began for Bickford almost two hours before. A retired construction worker and Vietnam War-era U.S. Army sergeant, Bickford was at home on Go Devil Road about 200 feet from the pond shore when he heard a dog’s persistent barking. Barking dogs are a common nuisance in his neighborhood, but this dog’s sound was different.
“I am inside. I can usually hear them, but not like this. It was loud, loud, loud,” Bickford said.
The dog’s barking stuck in Bickford’s mind even as he went shopping in town for about an hour and 15 minutes. He stopped on Phinney Farm Road on his way back home to see if he could find the dog. He was shocked when he saw where it was.
“The dog had been in the water for about two hours,” Bickford estimated. “When he saw me, he started crying. I felt so bad.”
Bickford called 911 and was told that a game warden would be routed to help. Fearing that would take too long, Bickford called back and asked for the fire department, requesting that firefighters come rescue the animal because for them such rescues are routine, Goslin said.
Bickford said he “really didn’t think about” waiting for firefighters to arrive.
“At first when I heard that dog barking I wanted to wring his neck,” Bickford, who owns a shih tzu named Wizard, said. “When I walked out there and he started crying, I said, ‘Well, I am going for it. I have to save him.’”
“I might have been able to make it to shore without these guys,” Bickford added, “but I don’t know.”
Bickford was “definitely stressed” when Stratton first saw him. Stratton shouted encouragement to Bickford before getting into the water and helping him. Slomienski joined them shortly thereafter, Stratton said.
Bickford was grateful for the firefighters’ assistance. He visited the Lincoln Public Safety building hours later to thank them.
Bickford doubted the retriever, whom Bickford suspects comes from a home a few doors down the road from the pond, would have lived long enough for firefighters to save him. It went under the water three times before Bickford freed it, he said.
The red bandanna on the dog’s neck left Bickford comfortable that the animal was no stray, but Bickford and firefighters never learned whose dog it was. Once Bickford opened the path in the ice and reached the animal, the dog swam to shore and later took off, Bickford said.
“The dog did stand there and watch to see if I made it,” Bickford said. “I was really happy to see that. At least the dog will have a happy Christmas.”
“He’s the real hero of the whole thing,” Stratton said of Bickford. “He went into the water for a dog he didn’t even know.”