Newton woman and dog pulled from river (Boston Globe)

[Crossfire Bulldogs]

Acquaintance, officer in rescue
By Benjamin Freed, Globe Correspondent | December 25, 2005

A tragedy was narrowly averted in Newton yesterday when a local woman and her dog were plucked from the frigid Charles River by another dog owner and a police detective.

The woman, whose name was not released, plunged into the river at about 11 a.m. as she tried to rescue her Rottweiler, which had fallen through a patch of thin ice, police said.

One of the woman's rescuers, Alexandria Kokovidis of Waltham, was in Norumbega Park with her 9-year-old son Christopher and their Cairn terrier. She said in a telephone interview that she used her dog's leash and her jacket to give the victim something to hold onto as she tried to pull the woman and her dog out.

Kokovidis, an acquaintance of the victim through their regular trips to the park in Newton's Auburndale section, said she was overwhelmed by adrenaline during the rescue and did not realize how truly perilous the situation was.

''When you're in the moment you don't realize how nerve-racking it is," Kokovidis said, who later in the day headed to Western Massachusetts for Christmas.

While his mother was trying to pull the woman out, Christopher Kokovidis ran for help and found another dog owner at the park who called emergency officials on a cellular phone.

A Newton police detective who was in the area, Nils Anderson, arrived at the park a few minutes later and helped Alexandria Kokovidis pull the victim and her dog out of the water.

The woman was examined for symptoms of hypothermia at Newton-Wellesley Hospital and was released with a clean bill of health, Newton Police Lieutenant Bruce Apotheker said at a press conference yesterday afternoon.

The Charles is relatively narrow in that area of the park, giving it a stronger current and a thinner layer of ice, he said. Apotheker praised Anderson and Kokovidis for their ''quick thinking."

Anderson gave much of the credit to Kokovidis, who according to a police report was sprawled over the ice as she struggled to save the other woman.

''The woman might have slipped under," Anderson said, were it not for Kokovidis. Police said that the water where the woman fell through was too deep to stand in.

The victim's dog, Lucy, was also in good health and described by both Kokovidis and police as very well-tempered.

A Mashpee man drowned last March after he fell through ice while chasing his dogs on a frozen pond. The dogs survived, but John W. Harsch died after being submerged for more than half an hour.

Apotheker, the Newton police lieutenant, repeated a warning frequently given by public officials at this time of year.

''We urge people not to go out on the ice no matter how thick it is," he said. ''There will probably be stories like this where some people don't survive."