(warning, warning, this topic is OFF TOPIC, mostly. Read at your own
risk. If you feel the need to rant and rave over OFF TOPIC postings,
please don't. Or if you just feel the need to be nasty and abusive,
please don't. You'll do your blood pressure a big favor, you'll live
longer and get to annoy all your relatives.)

Artful save ends an orange alert

BY DAVID SALTONSTALL

A volunteer tending to "The Gates" in Central Park created his own stir
yesterday - when he rescued a pair of drowning dogs from an icy
pond."Gates" worker Michael Dickey was checking on some saffron-colored
portals near The Pool, a small, frozen-over pond near W. 102nd St. in
the park, when he spotted two pooches in hot pursuit of a duck on the
ice around 9 a.m.

But the mutts plunged through the ice and into the frigid waters -
where they instantly became trapped.

The dogs' frantic owner, Michelle Fracasso, 37, started to clamber onto
the ice, too, but was quickly warned away.

Enter Dickey, 25, who happened to be carrying an 8-foot pole used by
volunteers to untangle the 7,500 fabric panels of "The Gates" when they
occasionally get twisted in the wind.

The Brooklyn artist plunged into the water up to his chest - then used
the pole to break up the ice between him and the dogs. "It was
definitely pretty cold," he said.

Full story can be found here
http://ihmp.net/@/qm
or
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/loca...p-241366c.html