I love rescue stories about dogs, more specifically, when the dogs are doing the rescuing! Such amazing animals. Here is a great rescue story about a dog named Mole that found a hiker that was was stuck on Mount Rubidoux in Riverside County, you may have seen it on the local news the other night. What a great dog and lucky hiker!
Riverside, CA, resident Ramon Llamas and his dog, Mole,
regularly hike on Mount Rubidoux in Riverside County. It's their
routine, three to four times a week, according to KABC-TV. Mole likes to scramble off the trail on his own and check things out.
But this time, Mole found a hiker who had been trapped for
four to six days, without food, and far enough from the paved portion
of trail that nobody could hear his cries for help. The trail receives a
constant stream of hikers, some with baby strollers, out for daily
exercise, but they were all out of range.
"[Mole] likes to go look in the rocks and he kind of
pulled me over, pulling and crying and I said, 'What's going on boy?'"
Llamas said.
Llamas followed his dog warily. He thought Mole might have
found a coyote lurking in the outcropping of rocks, or some other
danger. He approached slowly. He peered in. He saw a pair of eyes.
Llamas asked if the man needed help. The man definitely needed help.
"He said, 'I need water, please don't leave me.' So I gave
him water from my backpack and in a minute he said, 'You got more?' So I
give more water," Llamas said.
Llamas got some other hikers and they called 911.
Firefighters with the Riverside Fire Department's Technical Rescue Team
made their way to the location and rescued the man.
"He was severely dehydrated. He was conscious. We were
able to talk to him, but we could not fully get all the information out
of him," said Riverside Fire Capt. Bruce Vanderhorst. "He was slightly
confused with his timeline of events."
"In talking to him, he came up here during the night
time," said Vanderhorst. "So we think he was unaware of his footing,
slipped in between some rocks and slid down to the location where he
was."
"He was almost in a standing position wedged down," said
another firefighter. "He actually got really deep down inside. It's a
good thing that the dog located the victim."
The man was very disoriented but is being treated for
dehydration at a local hospital and is expected to be fine. The fire
captain said that if another day or so had passed, he would have died.
It bears mentioning that Mole, the hero dog, is himself a rescue.
