Dog’s Best Friend Proves to Be Rescuer

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 next to the Universal Studios property.

When Olszewski learned the commotion involved 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 pup from the current in the small central channel that runs along 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 Los Angeles County firefighter John Anderson.

Olszewski and the pup 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.

The incident happened about 3:15 p.m., along a section of the river between Barham and Lankershim boulevards in Universal City, Anderson said.

Anderson unlocked an access gate to rescue Olszewski and the dog, he said.

“He scraped his hands a little, but he’s OK and so is the dog,” said co-worker Lisa Brenner, 25, of Hollywood.

Olszewski said he cannot keep the pup 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.”