Puppy in a Drain Pipe

      It's amazing how many people will respond to a puppy in distress.  If a small animal like a dog or cat is caught somewhere dangerous people will move heaven and earth to effect a rescue.   I remember working with an ambulance crew just before the advent of fire department ambulances crewed by paramedics.  In those days the main qualifier was having a strong stomach and getting to a hospital as fast as possible.  One day we got a call about a child trapped in a storm drain and we got there in a hurry.

      We rode in an old converted Chevrolet panel truck with red lights and a siren salvaged from a defunct rural fire department.  This siren started with a low growl that built into a crescendo of bass sound that would physically blow cars out of our way.  We thought the new sirens sounded like kid's toy whistles.  At the site it turned out it wasn't a child at all and it was really a puppy whose cries sounded exactly like a human child.  Somehow he had gotten into the storm drain and got stuck in a bend of the main line to the sewer. 

     By this time the fire department was on scene along with police cars as well as a city work crew complete with supervisor and a backhoe and operator.  Everybody joined in the discussion and a decision was reached unanimously that the storm drain would have to come out along with a section of sidewalk.  News crews arrived from radio stations and newspapers along with an a lone TV  crew from the new station in the area.  The Salvation Army arrived with coffee and donuts. All in all about twenty five or thirty people were involved in the rescue effort.

     Finally it became necessary to rip out some of the street itself to get down to free the terrified puppy.  A huge cheer went up when a fireman emerged from the hole holding the bedraggled little dog above his head.  He was taken to a nearby animal shelter wrapped in a policeman's jacket.  What to me was exceptional were the extraordinary measures taken to rescue an animal; the same as if it was a human child.  There is hope for America with people like these.