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FacebookCrews save dog stuck 450-feet in culvert
Thursday, December 04, 2008
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Rick Pizzurro, of the Dreier and Maller company, gets a smooch from 'Zeke' Wednesday evening after he pulled him from the 15-inch drain pipe he had been stuck in since Thanksgiving.
'Zeke' the dog is seen 435 feet down a 15-inch drain pipe using a remote video camera Wednesday. The mixed breed dog had been stuck in the pipe since Thanksgiving and was rescued safely Wednesday evening.ST. PARIS — A crew with a robotic camera and a backhoe managed to rescue Wednesday night, Dec. 3, a dog caught in a field drainage pipe.
The dog, a 2-year-old German short hair boxer-mix named Zeke, had gone missing the day after Thanksgiving from the home of Rick Story, 7210 Old Troy Pike near St. Paris in Champaign County. Story said Wednesday that he had nearly given up hope.
"I was thinking that it wouldn't be a rescue; it would be a recovery," he said. "Last night, my wife and I had pretty much decided he was gone."
The dog belongs to their daughter, Sarah Story, a trainer from Fort Wayne, Ind., who works with the animal as a therapy dog at nursing homes and schools. She had been visiting her parents when Zeke went missing.
On Saturday, her father hired a backhoe to dig several holes on his property in an attempt to reach Zeke, but all the noise scared the dog, driving him farther down the pipe.
But on Wednesday a crew from Dreier & Maller Inc., which works for cities on sewer lines, used a robotic camera to crawl down the pipe to locate the dog, 450 feet from Kite Road under a Champaign County farm.
Cly Burns, the owner of the farm, gave rescuers permission to dig a hole behind the dog's location, and then rescuers drove him backward using the camera, until he backed out of the pipe around 6:30 p.m.
The rescue effort took most of the day. In the end, Zeke spent five days in the pipe and traveled about half a mile.
Once he was out, to the cheers of the half dozen people standing in the muddy farm field, Zeke appeared healthy, but for his prominent ribs and bloodshot eyes. He still wore his leash.
