Here's a good reminder: when leaving home, always bring your cell phone, and always bring your dog.
A man got stuck in the mud and water last weekend at Buck Creek State Park in Springfield, Ohio while taking down duck blinds, the covers that hunters use to stay out of sight of their prey.
The man, whose name hasn't been released, used his cell phone to call 911. But when emergency responders arrived, the water was too shallow to get a rescue boat out to where he was stuck, up to his chest, in water that one official said was about 33 degrees.
Meanwhile, "the dog was running back and forth, a nervous wreck with his owner out there," said Kathy Bartlett, assistant fire chief for the Moorefield Township Fire Department.
A wildlife officer thought to try attaching the a rope to the dog's collar, Bartlett said.
As you can see in video from local TV station WDTN, it worked -- and the dog swam the rope to his owner, who was soon freed.
Travis Martin, a supervisor for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources' watercraft division, which took part in the rescue, said that if the ordeal had gone on much longer than two hours, the man might not have walked away from the scene.
"He could have been in danger of suffering hypothermia," Martin says. "Luckily he had his cell phone. And his dog."
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