When firefighters need someone saved from a sticky situation, they call the department’s rescue team. Usually, the team rescues someone, not something.
Exceptions can be made for beloved pets, though.
On Aug. 28, Prince George’s County firefighters from Station 22 responded to a call from police at the home of Daniel Ellis in Suitland. Kujo, Ellis’ 120 pound mastiff-like dog, had crawled under the back porch and fallen down an old sewage well.
“Pets are a part of people’s lives,” said firefighter Travis Lambert. “It was the right thing to do.”
In this situation, the right thing involved ripping up the porch and lowering Lambert on a series of pulleys into the 3-foot-wide, 30-foot-deep well that was filling with water on a rainy day.
The team followed standard procedure by conducting a risk assessment to decide whether to attempt a rescue. Their decision was aided by the possibility of someone taking matters into their own hands.
“If we left and said, ‘We can’t do this,’ the homeowner or someone else was going to go down there and risk their lives,” Lambert said.
Three hours after arriving on the scene, Lambert was lowered into the well, and was able to attach a harness to Kujo for the team to pull him up. Lambert said the dog was cooperative, despite of his predicament.
By the time Kujo was out of the well, Lambert had made a new friend. Kujo could be seen licking Lambert’s face after the rescue.
“I was just one cog in the machine,” Lambert said, “but I just happened to be the one that was picked to go down.”
