Des Moines 8th Graders Save Dog Stuck in Mud

As George Holtz, Maev Cleary, Nate Stenberg and other eighth-grade students from Bergman Academy in Des Moines, Iowa, jogged around a drained pond Thursday during gym class, they noticed two dogs below them in the mud. One was unable to move.

“Whatever,” the teens did not say.

While others in the surrounding park did nothing, the eighth graders immediately sprang into action.

“The black dog was right here and looking at the dog with concern,” Holtz told WHOtv.com. “And then we put this stick down so then we wouldn’t sink in the mud when we tried to rescue them.”

The trapped dog’s height was a problem. “It didn’t have very long legs, so it was stuck in there pretty good and it couldn’t get out because its legs were too short,” Cleary told WHOtv.com.

The group was eventually able to free the scared and shivering dog. They contacted the Animal Rescue League of Iowa, which, happily, reunited the microchipped dogs with their owner.

“You don’t think of kids actually going out of their way to do something, out of their comfort zone, for a strange animal,” their proud teacher, Cristy Reeves, told WHOtv.com. “It was an awesome feeling after they got finished, because they saved their lives.”

As for the group now being hailed as heroes, Stenberg said, “If you want to call us heroes, I guess you can.”

Teenagers.