Georgia Firefighters Rescue Brave Boxer Who Was Stranded Overnight in 35-Foot Well
Courtesy of Oconee County Fire Rescue
After a harrowing evening spent at the bottom of a well, a Georgia dog was reunited with her grateful family, thanks to the help of some fantastic firefighters.
The ordeal began when the pup, a boxer named Yoyo, was let out of the house on the evening of July 15 to roam the family's acreage. She didn't come home when the family was ready for bed, but that wasn't unusual for Yoyo.
"I thought 'she's chasing squirrels,' so I said I'd go to sleep and she'll come home when the kids get home," Yoyo's human, Sarah Dean, told the Athens Banner-Herald. "She didn't, and we got very worried come morning."
The family went out looking for Yoyo the morning of the 16th, after Dean's daughter mentioned hearing "what sounded like a small dog, faraway." That prompted Dean's husband to search the property and that's when he found Yoyo at the bottom of a 35-foot well, the cover of which had been previously damaged by a falling oak tree. The Deans called 911 and the Gwinnett County Fire Department Technical Rescue Team was dispatched to handle the rescue.
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Oconee County Fire Chief Bruce Thaxton told the Banner-Herald that his team responded with a dozen personnel, including seven members of the Technical Rescue Team and their trailer of equipment. Together, the firefighters set about clearing the brush around the well and setting up their wench equipment before finally lowering a single firefighter down the narrow well to retrieve the paddling pooch.
"The woman they sent down in the well was a straight-up superhero," Dean said. "She was compassionate, sweet, and a total badass."
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Nobody knows exactly when Yoyo fell down the opening, but the pupper was most likely paddling for hours in eight feet of dark water before being discovered. Once she was brought back up to the surface, the exhausted pup was taken to the University of Georgia Veterinary Teaching Hospital, where she remained overnight but was expected to make a full recovery.
