Sarah Taddeo

@sjtaddeo

Sarah Wilkins isn’t used to saving lives on her regular walks at Spring Lake Park in Perinton, but on Sunday, she did just that after a woman and two dogs fell into a freezing creek.

Wilkens, of Penfield, was thinking about leaving the park on a freezing Sunday afternoon when she heard several women screaming out "Jasper," which she assumed was a dog’s name. She had seen a group of several women venture down the park path earlier in the day, and she went to investigate the cries.

Then she heard something even more disconcerting — a woman crying "Help, I’m drowning," over and over.

“I kind of panicked,” said Wilkins, adding that she never carries her mobile phone but happened to have it that day. She called 911 after spotting a woman in the water, barely hanging onto to the ice.

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The woman, Melinda Johnston, of Rochester, had gone into the water to rescue Jasper, a Jack Russell mix owned by her friend Wendy Rosen. The dog had fallen into the water and wasn't moving.

"I thought the water was three to four feet deep, but it turned out to be about eight feet deep ... and I'm not a good swimmer," said Johnston, adding that it immediately became difficult to breathe in the frigid creek, and her winter clothes and boots started weighing her down.

"It crossed my mind a few times that these could be my last few moments on planet Earth," she said, while chest-deep in the water and clinging onto the ice with her fingernails. "But I really felt that something was holding me and that dog up."

That's when Wilkins showed up, slid down a steep, icy embankment and headed out onto the creek bank.

“I was furiously trying to tear anything out to hand out to her,” said Wilkins, who added that she threw out her coat for Johnston to grab onto. Johnston remembers Wilkins eventually stretching out her hand from the ice.

Jasper was in the water for at least 20 minutes, and Johnston estimates she was there for about 10 minutes. After Wilkins pulled Johnston and Jasper to safety, Johnston's husky mix, Chinook, also fell into the creek. Wilkins rescued her too.

“The dog probably went out to save (Johnston,)” said Wilkins, adding that because Chinook was so big and didn’t have a collar on, “I don’t even know how I got her out.”

Emergency crews eventually arrived and treated Johnston on the spot, while the two other women brought Jasper to an emergency veterinary hospital.

It took a day and half to get warm, said Johnston — "It was hard to sleep, because I'd be replaying (the incident) in my head," said Johnston.

"Most of all you’re just thankful, because it could have had so many different outcomes," she said. "Right now, there’s a celebration of life."

Wilkins has been checking on Johnston and the dogs ever since, and said that the ordeal deepened her belief in God’s providence.

“Part of me just thinks that’s what a human being would do, but to be able to work so quickly, that’s a gift from God,” said Wilkins. Johnston said she hopes to forge a friendship with Wilkins, perhaps over dog walks at Spring Lake Park.

"The story will continue," said Johnston.

STADDEO@Gannett.com