Man and dog rescued after falling into southwest Calgary ravine
'The sun went down, his dog was injured and he had taken a fall,' said captain of fire rescue team
A Calgary man and his dog are a little banged up but otherwise fine after being rescued by fire crews from the bottom of a ravine late Wednesday night.
The man called 911 to say he and his dog had fallen into the ravine at the edge of Patterson Heights in the city's southwest.
"The sun went down, his dog was injured and he had taken a fall and he was injured and he didn't know where he was, and he was disoriented," said Capt. Roger Smith with the fire department's high-angle rescue team.
Crews started a grid search, and with help from flood lights on a HAWCS police helicopter and the use of thermal imaging cameras, they found the man and his dog after about 20 minutes, Smith said.
"We performed a low-slope rescue using haul systems and a tightened stretcher to get them back up the slope," he said.
Smith says the dog was a bit anxious at first, but the team was able to calm him down and get him harnessed up in the stretcher.
"He was almost sleeping by the time we got to the top of the hill," he said.
Smith says the team trains constantly so that crews can be ready for any scenario.
"It's nice when we put that to use," he said.