A golden retriever for rescue crew
Published: July 12, 2007
The Aurora Township Fire Department hauled out the jaws of life Sunday to help retrieve a golden retriever.
At about 12:30 p.m. on an otherwise-quiet Mother’s Day, homeowners in the 1200 block of Gates Street called in reference to their golden retriever, Beamer, getting trapped beneath the concrete steps on their back porch.
A team of 16 firefighters responded to the scene and encountered the dog, who was “naturally excited and a little growly,” said Fire Chief Rob Watermann.
“We gave him some hot dogs to calm him down and coax him,” Watermann said.
While scheming for ways to free the dog from beneath the 1,000-pound steps, and avoid crushing him in the process, firefighters opted to use the “jaws of life” to hoist the stairs and provide enough of a cranny for the dog to escape to his fenced-in back yard.
Firefighters raised the steps about eight inches and had placed cribbing to secure the steps, when suddenly a woodchuck “came screaming out of the hole,” Watermann said.
“For the firefighter down on all fours, I think we had to take him out back and hose him down,” Watermann said with a chuckle.
Beamer apparently had squeezed through a small hole in the steps in his quest to tangle with the woodchuck.
Eventually, the dog emerged from beneath the steps and, without skipping a beat, tracked the scent of his prey before accepting defeat, as the woodchuck ambled its way to safety.
“Not your average, ordinary rescue call,” Watermann said. “Afterward, we were all sitting around talking and said, ‘Doggone it, this would have been a nice video.’”
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