Content area
Full Text
She stood at the edge of the rapidly flowing water, bulked up with a lifejacket and an equipment pack on her back. Her eyes were fixed on the furry bundle on the opposite bank that needed to be rescued.
It was still springtime, and that water looked mighty cold even though she had a wetsuit on, but Jeaneen Hercha, the Lawrence Humane Society's director of animal welfare and cruelty investigator, was ready. Reading the distance across and the speed of the water, she moved slightly upstream from her target, took a deep breath and dove in, powering herself against the current that kept pushing her downstream.
It seemed more like hours than minutes before she finally crawled out on the opposite bank. She approached the dog slowly, captured and muzzled it and, assisted by guide ropes from waiting team members, brought her captive safely back across.
When she pulled herself out of the water, her teammates congratulated her - she was the first woman in this session of the renowned Rescue 3 international training class to have succeeded.
For Hercha, however, this was all in a day's work....