Local man saves dog from going over the dam
Not many people would ever consider jumping into the Swan River since it’s filled with recently melted snow and the closer you get to the dam the more dangerous it becomes. But, when a life was in danger Bigfork’s Bruce Piasecki didn’t hesitate to jump in last Wednesday at 10 a.m.
In this case, that life had four legs and a tail.
Holly Wilson’s year-and-a-half old black labradoodle, Samantha, jumped into the river almost immediately after Wilson met Piasecki and his friend Rose Funk on the trail along the river.
“Immediately when I heard the splash I knew things would go wrong, if we are not in the water controlling her she would get out of control,” Wilson said. “When she has a screechy bark she has lost focus on humans, it’s a shrill bark and when I heard that I knew she was a goner and won’t listen.”
Samantha was swimming downstream and approaching the dam where the wild mile rapids begin. Piasecki estimated that the water was about 58 degrees, but he jumped in the river with his hiking boots and clothes on.
“I said to myself ‘this is going to be cold,’ but at that point I knew I had to get to her before she got past us and then it took my breath away,” Piasecki said.
Within five minutes of Samantha jumping in the river, Wilson started heading back to her car at the Ferndale end of the trail to go home and get a kayak since it looked like Samantha was going to swim to the other side of the river.
Fortunately, Funk had a cell phone Wilson could use to call her husband to bring out a kayak.
This was about the time that Piasecki jumped into the river and swam out about 75-100 feet. He was in the river for about 15 minutes. But, he said he didn’t start to feel cold until he got home and the adrenaline wore off.
“I was pumped up and determined to get her,” Piasecki said. “Then I saw how far land was and said ‘uh-oh.’ I wasn’t cold, the adrenaline was just rushing through me.”
At 60 years old Piasecki is in excellent shape, he does yoga for an hour and runs eight miles each day. This came in handy when the weight of his boots pulled him under as he swam against the current toward the dog.
Unfortunately, Samantha hasn’t learned her lesson about staying out of the river after last week’s incident. Wilson is currently considering an “e-collar” to help teach Samantha to stay out.
This isn’t the first time Piasecki has saved a life. In 1995 he carried a 19-year-old man who had been attacked by a grizzly bear on his back for a mile through a storm in the Beartooth Mountains. This event was later re-enacted on the TV show “I Should Not Be Alive.”
In 2007 Piasecki saved his wife, Connie, while she was having a seizure. He’s also saved two skunks, one from a trap and one from a culvert.
“I seem to have good spirits around me,” Piasecki said. “I feel confident because I’ve kept in good shape and there was a time when I wasn’t and now I feel like I can do anything.”
It’s often said that everything happens for a reason, and part of the reason Piasecki is so active is because he has broken his neck three times and his doctor told him to start getting more exercise to help with the healing process.
“I was in the wrong place at the right time,” Piasecki said. “The dog was just as important to me as a human, I make my life around my dog and I know how important it is to people, their animals.”