Local men free dolphins trapped by ice

Three dolphins had been trapped for a week by drift ice in the harbor of Seal Cove, Newfoundland. Residents of the small community appealed to the local department of fisheries and oceans, but received no response.

Four local men finally took their own 16-foot boat, rammed it up on the ice, jumped out and began hacking a channel to the open sea…

“You’d hear them crying, every night,” said one of the men in the boat, Rodney Rice, 39. “I went down there last night and you could hear them trying to break up more ice. . . . They wouldn’t have lasted another day.”

“I had a floater suit on,” said Banks, “And they would come up and rest their head on me and I would keep their head out of the water so they can breathe through their blowhole.”