In the fading light of a chilly autumn afternoon in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, a routine neighborhood stroll turned into a heart-pounding drama that would soon capture the attention of an entire community. It began innocently enough: Peggy Edwards, a 68-year-old retired schoolteacher known for her daily walks with a thermos of chamomile tea, was crossing the Blackstone River pedestrian bridge when she noticed a small brown blur darting frantically along the embankment. The blur was Cece, a four-year-old Yorkshire terrier weighing barely five pounds, her silky tan-and-black coat fluffed in panic. Moments earlier, a delivery truck had backfired with a deafening crack, sending Cece bolting from her leash in the hands of her owner, Michelle Perez, who had been distracted by a phone call about her daughter’s school project. What unfolded next involved a forgotten storm drain, a police officer’s bare feet, a GoPro camera accidentally left recording, and an underground chase that twisted through 180 feet of pitch-black concrete pipe before emerging into a tale of unlikely heroism that reminded everyone why small towns still believe in miracles.
The tunnel in question was no ordinary culvert. Built in 1932 as part of a Depression-era flood control project, the Woonsocket Storm Drain #7 had long been a whispered legend among local kids—who called it “the Dragon’s Throat” because of the way rainwater roared through it after heavy storms. What most residents didn’t know was that the tunnel narrowed dramatically in the middle, dropping from a four-foot diameter to barely two-and-a-half feet in a section engineers had reinforced with rusted iron rings during a 1970s repair. On this particular Tuesday, October 17, 2023, recent rains had left the lower third of the pipe filled with ankle-deep water swirling with fallen maple leaves and the occasional discarded soda can. When Cece slipped through a gap in the chain-link fence at the tunnel’s mouth—pursued by Michelle’s desperate cries—she vanished into the darkness within seconds.
Peggy Edwards, standing 50 yards upstream, saw the whole thing. “I’ve lived here 42 years,” she later told reporters, “and I’ve never seen a dog move that fast. It was like she was shot out of a cannon.” Dropping her thermos (which miraculously didn’t shatter), Peggy sprinted to the fence and began shouting for help. A passing cyclist, 19-year-old Jamal Carter, heard the commotion and dialed 911 at 4:12 p.m. The call was routed to Officer Joe Brazil, a 12-year veteran of the Woonsocket Police Department who happened to be finishing a traffic stop just three blocks away. Brazil, 36, a former high school wrestler with a reputation for volunteering at the local animal shelter on his days off, arrived in his cruiser within four minutes. What he found was a scene straight out of a movie: Michelle Perez sobbing uncontrollably, Peggy waving her arms like a semaphore flag, and a faint, high-pitched yipping echoing from the tunnel’s depths.
Brazil’s first instinct was to call Animal Control, but the dispatcher informed him the city’s only ACO was 40 minutes away handling a loose horse on Mendon Road. Time was critical—sunset was less than an hour away, and temperatures were dropping into the 40s. Brazil made a split-second decision that would later earn him both departmental commendation and a soaked uniform. He kicked off his boots, rolled up his pants, and unclipped his duty belt, handing his firearm and radio to Jamal for safekeeping. “I figured if I could hear her, she could hear me,” he explained. “Dogs trust voices more than flashlights.”
What Brazil didn’t know was that Jamal, an aspiring filmmaker, had been testing a new GoPro Hero 12 mounted on his bike helmet. The camera, still recording in 4K, captured everything: Brazil’s bare feet splashing into the frigid water, the beam of his flashlight cutting through clouds of gnats, and the moment he dropped to his hands and knees when the tunnel narrowed. The footage—later uploaded to the department’s Facebook page—would garner over 2.3 million views in 48 hours.
Inside the tunnel, conditions deteriorated quickly. The water deepened to Brazil’s shins, then his knees. The concrete walls, slick with decades of algae, offered no handholds. At the 60-foot mark, he encountered an unexpected obstacle: a shopping cart someone had shoved into the pipe years earlier, now half-submerged and tangled with fishing line. Brazil wedged his shoulder against it, muscles straining, until the cart shifted with a metallic screech. Cece’s barking grew louder, punctuated by whimpers that told Brazil she was exhausted. “I started singing,” he recalled with a sheepish grin. “The only song I could think of was ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’ Figured it was soft enough not to scare her more.”
The tunnel’s midpoint constriction was the true test. Brazil, 6’1” and 210 pounds, had to lie flat and army-crawl through the narrow section, his uniform scraping against the iron rings. The GoPro captured his breathing—steady but labored—and the moment his flashlight illuminated Cece: a trembling, mud-caked ball of fur wedged against a pile of storm debris, her leash tangled around a root that had grown through a crack in the concrete. She was too weak to move, her paws scratched raw from scrabbling against the pipe.
Brazil inched forward until he could reach her. “Hey, little star,” he whispered, using the song’s lyrics. Cece’s ears twitched. Slowly, he extended his hand, letting her sniff his fingers. When she licked them—more out of dehydration than affection—he knew he had her trust. Wrapping her gently in his arms, he began the arduous backward crawl, pushing with his toes and pulling with his elbows. The return journey took 22 minutes, twice as long as the entry, because he refused to let go of the dog even when his knees bled from the rough concrete.
Emerging at 4:58 p.m., Brazil was a sight: barefoot, soaked to the waist, his shirt torn, and cradling a filthy Yorkie like a football. Michelle Perez collapsed to her knees, sobbing as Cece licked her face with renewed energy. Peggy Edwards, who had been praying aloud the entire time, let out a whoop that echoed across the river. Jamal’s GoPro caught the reunion in a single, unbroken shot: Brazil handing Cece over, then sitting down hard in the mud, laughing in relief as the dog’s tail wagged furiously.
But the story didn’t end there. At the animal hospital, veterinarians discovered Cece had a microchip—implanted when she was a puppy in a Kansas shelter—but the contact information was outdated. The chip’s serial number led to a defunct phone number in Topeka. Using the chip’s manufacturer database, a tech-savvy vet traced the original adoption paperwork to a family who had moved to Rhode Island six months earlier. The Perezes, it turned out, had adopted Cece from a rescue group that had transported her cross-country after she was found abandoned in a Walmart parking lot. The reunion wasn’t just local—it was a 1,400-mile thread connecting strangers through a single act of kindness.
The Woonsocket Police Department posted Jamal’s footage that night with the caption: “Sometimes the job means getting a little dirty.” By morning, #OfficerBrazil and #CeceTheYorkie were trending regionally. Local businesses stepped up: a dry cleaner offered free uniform cleaning for a year, a pet store donated a lifetime supply of premium dog food, and the mayor declared October 17 “Cece Day,” complete with a ceremonial fire hydrant painting. Brazil, humble as ever, deflected praise to Peggy Edwards. “She’s the real hero,” he said at a press conference. “If she hadn’t stayed calm and called for help, I’d have been fishing a leash out of the river.”
In the weeks that followed, unexpected ripples spread. A Providence Journal reporter digging into the tunnel’s history uncovered city plans to seal the entrance with a stronger grate—plans that had been delayed for budget reasons since 2019. Public outcry, fueled by Cece’s story, pushed the city council to allocate $45,000 for immediate repairs. Children at the local elementary school wrote thank-you cards to Officer Brazil, many illustrated with stick-figure dogs wearing police hats. And Michelle Perez started a GoFundMe to buy body cameras for the entire Woonsocket K-9 unit, raising $12,000 in three days.
Cece, now sporting a bright pink collar with a GPS tracker, has become something of a mascot. She accompanies Michelle to the police station every Friday for “coffee with cops,” where Brazil sneaks her bits of plain donut. The tunnel, meanwhile, has been fitted with a memorial plaque: “In honor of Cece, who reminded us that even the smallest among us deserve the bravest rescue. – October 17, 2023.”
The story of Officer Joe Brazil and Cece the Yorkie is more than a feel-good anecdote. It’s a reminder that heroism often wears muddy socks, that community is built one frantic phone call at a time, and that sometimes the difference between tragedy and triumph is a barefooted crawl through the dark, guided by a nursery rhyme and an unbreakable belief that no life is too small to save.
