Doggone tight spot
Photo courtesy of Renee Gilmer
Carri Tucker, who does confined space work for O’Brien’s Confined Space Rescue Services in Marietta, Ohio, kneels next to Dutch, a black Labrador retriever that was stuck in a drain pipe in Avella over the weekend.
Photo courtesy of Renee Gilmer
Dutch was stuck in a drain pipe in Avella over the weekend. He was rescued and is uninjured.
Photo courtesy of Gary O’Brien
Carri Tucker, in the yellow shirt and harness, pulls Dutch from the drain pipe in Avella Saturday with the help of other volunteers.
Photo courtesy of O’Brien’s Safety Services
This sticker of Dutch will be adhered to a new rescue truck belonging to Dutch’s rescuers, O’Brien’s Safety Services and Confined Space Rescue from Marietta, Ohio.
Photo courtesy of O’Brien’s Safety Services
Carri Tucker, at right, prepares to enter an 18-inch drain pipe to rescue Dutch.
Photo courtesy of Renee Gilmer
Renee Gilmer, left, kneels next to Dutch and Dutch’s rescuer, Carri Tucker, who pulled him from the drain pipe over the weekend.
It’s been a rough year for Renee Gilmer, an Avella native who now lives in Massachusetts. She lost her job in February, but on Friday, she almost lost much more.
Gilmer had decided to spend the past few weeks staying with friends on their Avella farm. Friday afternoon, she was playing with her three dogs near a pond on the property when her 10-year-old black Labrador retriever, Dutch, fell 20 feet into an 18-inch drain pipe.
Editor’s note: This video includes some mild language.
“Dutch was retrieving a stick, and he slipped down the pipe,” Gilmer said in a Tuesday interview.
She went to the other end of the pipe and stood in a ravine for three hours calling to Dutch.
“He was barking and crying ’cause he couldn’t come to me,” Gilmer said. “It was the worst feeling in the world to me. These dogs are my kids.”
Firefighters from Avella and West Middletown responded to the property along with the county’s Department of Public Safety and the county’s Animal Response Team to try to get Dutch out of the pipe. They were able to get a camera in the pipe to see that Dutch was still alive, but by 2 a.m., Gilmer said, they still were unable to get him out, and called off the rescue for the night.
“When I knew he was alive in that hole, of course I couldn’t sleep,” Gilmer said. “I could hear him barking, and I was just hoping that if I went to the door, he’d be on the porch.”
That night, Gilmer reached out to BJ Gaughan, the superintendent for Robinson Pipe Cleaning. He’s gotten calls about items stuck in pipes before – including dead rodents or animals causing a blockage – but never a live animal such as a dog.
“I was praying all night, and I couldn’t even sleep ’cause I was just worried about it,” Gaughan said.
Gaughan arrived on the property by 6 a.m. Saturday with a higher quality camera to send through the pipe. He and Codie Noga, a friend of Gilmer’s, started yelling down the pipe to see if Dutch was alive. Dutch didn’t respond.
“We were assuming the worst,” Gaughan said. “I could see about four inches of water building up in the pipe.”
When they put Gaughan’s camera in the pipe, Dutch turned around and looked at it.
“We were like, ‘Oh, my gosh; it’s still alive,'” Gaughan said. “I’ve never seen nothing like that before. It was so big compared to the size of the pipe.”
Once they knew Dutch was alive, Gilmer contacted Gary O’Brien, owner of O’Brien’s Confined Space Rescue Services in Marietta, Ohio. He put a team together and drove to Avella.
“The issue is an 18-inch pipe – that’s pretty small,” O’Brien said Tuesday. “It’s unbelievable because he fell butt-first. He was curled up in a ball.”
After hearing Gilmer’s story, O’Brien put a team together and made the drive to Avella.
“Each of us had prior commitments that we canceled to be able to do this,” he said. “I would want someone to do this for my dog.”
O’Brien said that a few years ago, he had to put down his Lab, Jake.
“I thought, if Jake was in that hole I’d want to go after him,” O’Brien said. “The hardest thing was telling Renee that, if I feel there is a probability that one of my employees is going to get hurt doing this, I have to abandon the rescue.”
That team member was Carri Tucker, who drove three-and-a-half hours from Maryland Saturday to climb into the 18-inch pipe to retrieve Dutch. She’s worked in industrial safety for 20 years, and has done confined space work for years.
That Saturday, Tucker was planning to go to a winery with friends, so she worked out in the morning. Then she got a call from Gary about Dutch.
“He said, ‘I can’t pay you for this,'” Tucker said Tuesday. “A lot of people have fallen on hard times right now. When he told me that (Gilmer) had lost her job and that it was an older dog – it just spoke to my heart. I’m one person who probably has the skill set to get the dog out of the pipe.”
Tucker’s been in an 18-inch pipe before, but never in an emergency situation like this, she said. Saturday afternoon the pipe already had water in it, and it was about to rain.
“I was cocking my head, and the poor dog had its head cocked up all night,” Tucker said.
Tucker crawled 200 feet into the pipe to get to the dog. Then she got her second workout of the day.
“Dutch is at least 100 pounds,” Tucker said.
Plus, she said, he was wet, scared and digging his paws in uncooperatively.
“He did that to me for 200 feet,” she said.
The space was so tight, Tucker’s arms were out in front of her and she couldn’t properly crawl. She said she had to mostly use her wrists and hands to pull him while in a plank position.
“I was so spent after that, I couldn’t even take the (safety) harness off,” she said.
But she got Dutch out, and he wasn’t injured, though he did have 10 minutes of business to take care of after being scrunched up in the pipe for 24 hours.
“He came out of the ravine,” Gilmer said. “He heard me and he ran to me up the ravine. I didn’t have to take him to the vet or anything.”
Everyone on scene was amazed that Dutch was unharmed, including Tucker.
“The only thing that everyone there thought about was the safety of this dog and getting it out alive,” Tucker said. “We all have a lot of concerns right now and there’s a lot of negativity that you can get focused on, but nobody that day thought about anything negative.”
Gilmer said it was an emotionally draining two days and that she’s never cried so much. She tried to pay O’Brien’s team and Gaughan for their help, but they wouldn’t take it.
“I still can’t believe it,” Gilmer said. “But it really showed me that there are such good people in the world.”
O’Brien said his company had just purchased a new rescue truck, which they’ve decided to name Dutch. They also made a sticker for the side of the vehicle that resembles the black Lab.
“This was not something I could charge someone for,” O’Brien said. “All the right people came together, and we got it done. We are all on this earth to help each other. I really try to do that.”