Man Saves Dog Trapped in L.A. River

UNIVERSAL CITY — Remember the TV shows where Lassie the wonder dog saved little Timmy from dangerous predicaments? The roles were reversed Tuesday when a movie studio employee rescued a dog drowning in the Los Angeles River, county fire officials said.

Anthony Edward Olszewski, 26, a production assistant for SKG DreamWorks, was returning from a delivery run when he noticed a crowd gathered by the concrete-lined river adjacent to the Universal Studios property.

When Olszewski learned the commotion was over a drowning dog, he said, he quickly removed a rope from the back of his pickup truck, lowered himself about 20 feet down the sheer concrete river wall and plucked the exhausted dog from the current in the small central channel that runs down the center of the flat river floor, mostly dry at this time of year.

“The dog couldn’t get over the concrete lip in the middle channel” and “was being carried away in the current,” said county Firefighter John Anderson.

The incident happened about 3:15 p.m., along a section of the river, lined with concrete to serve as a flood control channel, between Barham and Lankershim boulevards in Universal City, Anderson said. Olszewski and the dog wound up trapped together on the river floor, Anderson said.

“The concrete wall surrounding the channel is nearly vertical, and he could not get out,” Anderson said.

So Anderson, who is based at county station 51 on the Universal Studios lot, drove two miles to an access gate to rescue them, he said.

“[Olszewski] scraped his hands a little but he’s OK and so is the dog,” said co-worker Lisa Brenner, 25, from Hollywood. “He’s a kindhearted, good person, so we would expect him to do something like that.”

Olszewski, who celebrated his 26th birthday Tuesday, said he cannot keep the dog because he already has two iguanas and a dog, so he is looking for a good home for the animal, which he described as “some kind of German shepherd-husky mix.”