Out of interest has anyone heard on the grapevine where this happened?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/8042587.stm 

Sounds like he has been quite lucky - 35' is quite a way to drop 😮

Dog not so lucky though 😞

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sounds pretty stupid to me.. can't say I would take that sort of risk for a dog.....

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Kit Hill, Callington
See below
http://www.thisiswesternmorningnews.co.uk/news/Man-injured-trying-rescue-dog/article-979965-detail/article.html 

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sounds pretty stupid to me.. can't say I would take that sort of risk for a dog.....

I would, but I'd go home for scaff, string and SRT kit first....

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I was poking around up there the other day and the shafts are pretty well secured. Some of the collars are a bit frightening and the idiot was bloody lucky he didn't cop it in a more permanent way.

Very very lucky man indeed.

"Cap all mineshafts, I can almost hear the chorus now".

Grilling things panders to the lowest common denominator. Grilling against people's idiocy. Nanny state bans natural selection.....

GRRRR!!!!!

I wonder who was involved in the rescue.

What a retard. I can understand his reasons, but surely anyone in their right mind would choose their own saftey over saving a dog.

I hope his wife beat him with the rolling pin.

"Cap all mineshafts, I can almost hear the chorus now".

Grilling things panders to the lowest common denominator. Grilling against people's idiocy. Nanny state bans natural selection.....

GRRRR!!!!!

That was my reason for asking really - I was wondering which part of the county was about to be grilled over as a result of this lemming. I realised after posting that the guy was taken to Derriford rather than Treliske, so guessed it was probably East Cornwall somewhere.

Trying to rescue a dog wasn't the stupid part as any dog owner would probably do the same, but to try on your own without the correct equipment, well! just go and get some help! :confused:

There have been several occasions where a dog has been lost in a shaft, Fire brigade turn out and decide that the shaft is too deep and have told the owner that the dog is dead.
As a next resort they have called out the mine rescue team and for the most part, of many dog rescues I've attended, the owners told us that they were ready to attempt a rescue themselves had we not turned up.
At one place there was a farmer ready to strap 3 two section aluminium ladders together to lower down a shaft. On another there was a coil of 20mm blue polypropylene rope on the ground nearby.
People will go down to rescue a beloved animal and also to retrieve a dead one.
It's a curious fact that HSE only applies to people that are employed by a service, ie recieving wages; Volunteer groups do not and so their area of operation is somewhat extended compared to say the Fire service.
However, this is still seen by some professional organisations as giving volunteer groups a license to be cavalier. As we all know, there is no room to be cavalier in this lark!!
The British Cave Rescue Council have hashed this point out with all the major rescue services and although agreement has been reached and ratified by all member organisations ,(Police, Fire, Ambulance, etc.) There still exists a reluctance for some to work with volunteer groups.
This can subsequently lead to situations where if one professional organisation cannot achieve a result - for whatever reason - they seem to assume that no one else can, or should.
Now we have a dog owner, with a dog down a hole, and no one willing to rescue it or advise them of a group that could.
Feeling totaly abandoned, the only course of action left to the owner is to Have a Go Yourself!.....the cosequences of which could be a lot worse than happened at Kit Hill.

Risk asessment proceedure can follow similar paths in any emergency service. The limits to those risks however, can be very different indeed, and the sooner this is accepted by the various services, the better will be the service to the public overall.

Most local caving groups used to do dog rescues for the public at one time, I wonder if this still happens around the country?.....Anyone?

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I have had experience of more than one fatality or serious injury at work, and I'm not a 'dog-lover' person.. I could happily walk away from a dog in a mineshaft rather than endanger one of my team un-necessarily... I don't see why the Fire Brigade should be expected to do this kind of thing.

I ws involved in a tunnel fire in Central London a number of years ago, a TBM whose transformer caught fire and ignited the belt :ohmygod: about 1km in. The team were evacuated and the Fire Brigade were called. However, the FB had no experience of the environment inside the tunnel, and we ended up putting as many men into the tunnel as we had evacuated, using FB BA kit, to guide them to the location and discharge three extinguishers into the transformer casing. We could have done that ourselves.

The TBM was back in service about 3 weeks later, with a new belt and a transformer robbed from another machine. Some of the lining had to be jetwashed but there was no serious damage to the rings

I think these days we would let the original fire take its course.

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I have a colleague who is in the fire service based at Bodmin, he was called out to a dog rescue agin I believe in the Callington area, a few months ago. The Devon Cabve Rescue team were also called out. The fire brigde actually recovered the dog befor the cave rescue team got there.

Knowing I am into exploring old mines, the following Monday he remarked to me how crazy it was of the cave rescue team to rig up and go down the shaft knowing the dog had been rescued. Another colleague of mine is a special police officer (I didn't realise the specials had ranks, but apparently he his now the most senior special in Devon & Cornwall, still gets paid the same mind!), he agree with the firefigher, that it was stupid and foolhardy!

My reaction was on the lines of, hang on, you have a cave rescue team that have been called out on a shout.

1. They enjoy going down holes.
2. They're all together.
3. They have all the kit.

Surely its the perfect oppurtunity to use as a training exercise. Anyway the way the fire brigade performs a rescue is completely different from how a Cave/Mine rescue team would - firefighters don't Prussick! They get huled up and down!

Slightly off topic but people do act irrationally regarding dogs. Look at that tragedy a couple of days ago in Scotland when a young couple were out for a walk with their young baby and dog.
The dog fell into a fast running river, the bloke jumped in to rescue him, got into difficulties so his wife jumped in as well. They both drowned, presumably along with the dog. The baby, now an orphan, was left alone on the river bank.

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But they probably had the dog longer than the baby! To some people a dog is just a dog, to others a dog is as much a part of the family as anyone else in the family.

Quite.

Even though I don't have a dog myself I'm periferally involved in Dog Rescue of the Rehoming sort.

The recent deaths in Scotland show what can happen – in fact there were 3 dogs, of which one survived.

The Coastguard and RNLI are emphatic that they WILL go out to rescue dogs. Every year several people drown trying to rescue dogs – the response is not primarily for the dogs sake but for the safety of the owners.

I have also been told by a Firefighter that beinging out a dead pet is one of the most unpleasent things they have to do. The owners response is traumatic – second only to a child. In his brigade they respond to dogs in danger because they know that in the long run it saves human lives.

To put it into perspective. I was once told by a casual aquintance that the death of his dog had affected him more than the death of his son at a few days old. The son was bad enough but the dog had been with him through thick and thin and seen him through some of the most difficult periods of his life.

I know people who quite literally would not be alive today if it were not for the anchor their dog gave them in this world. I also knew a man who gave up on life after the death of his dog, he began to give away his tools etc. and very soon died of an illness.

Whether you think its strange or not people WILL put themselves in danger for their pets and people regularly die doing so.

To many people its no more 'irrational' to put yourself in danger for a dog you know than it is to put yourself in danger for a human you don't - and who may have deliberately put themselves in a place of danger in the first place (e.g. Mine Explorers).

Rick

I came across this on the CRO incidents page:

2008 May 20 Tue 09.30 Sell Gill Holes, North Yorkshire - Animal Rescue
A four year old Staffordshire Bull Terrier gained the dubious honour of initiating the 400th animal rescue carried out by CRO when it fell 9m down the entrance shaft of Sell Gill Holes. Unhurt, the dog was successfully hauled to the surface and reunited with its owner.

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Sbt wrote

To many people its no more 'irrational' to put yourself in danger for a dog you know than it is to put yourself in danger for a human you don't - and who may have deliberately put themselves in a place of danger in the first place (e.g. Mine Explorers).

I agree, and it makes rational sense to utilise the skills of the experienced caver/mine explorer to full advantage.
It minimises 'official' risk, and the paperwork / HSE burden would be drastically reduced leaving the fire brigade or whoever, to be ready for the next 'shout' in a very short time.
Let's all work together for the common good :flowers:

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Apart from this incident, there have been two further succesful dog rescues from shafts at Phoenix in the last few weeks, one dealt with by Devon CRO and one a couple of days ago from the recently collapsed stope in the track by Stowe's Shaft which was carried out by the Fire Service. Such things do seem to come in bunches, a few years ago there were three call outs for dogs at Strode's Shaft at Bottle Hill over quite a short period, and I think there was a time when CRO or Derbyshire CRO had to rescue the same dog from several different shafts over one weekend.

Regarding Fire Service involvment in Rescues, this has a very long history in Cornwall. Please see the recent discussion on the UK Caving Forum.

Re Mine Rescue in Cornwall, the current situation is I understand very unsatisfactory, discussion of this is probably best kept away from here (politics).

I was moved to reply to this posting as some of the comments gave me cause for concern.
I should be open from the start - I am Chair of Cornwall Search & Rescue Team. We were called to assist the Fire Service & Paramedics on this rescue and I was in attendance.
Firstly, we are not a Mine Rescue team. We are a search and rescue team but we do have a Technical Rescue unit. (I wont bore you with the detailed difference but feel free to PM me if you want to know more.)
Our role is to support front line emergency services and in this case the actual rescue was carried out by Fire and Ambulance personnel to a degree of competency and professionalism that is beyond question.
Those of us (myself included) who have been involved in underground exploration for some time need to recognise that the modern fire service has more resource, equipment and training than any voluntary sector organisation (my own included) can ever hope to match.
They are not fire fighters dabbling in an unfamiliar surrounding but are also trained experts in rope rescue, confined space rescue, urban search & rescue etc - all of which are transferrable skills.
CSRT Technical Rescue Unit is able to assist with aspects of technical rescue - including from an underground environment - but I would repeat that we are not a Mine Rescue Team. We can (and do) assist with aspects of underground casualty location and treatment, underground & surface rigging including multi-pitch and difficult access rescues but we do not have the equipment or numbers (or desire) to be a mine rescue team.
To this end, I hope to meet colleagues from Devon Cave Rescue in the coming weeks to discuss better arrangements for mine rescue in Cornwall. I am sure they, and we, will be happy to share the outcomes of those discussions in due course. However, there is - and always will be - a leading role for the statutory emergency services and most voluntary teams have excellent working relationships with Police, Fire, Ambulance & HM Coastguard.
In this instance, all statutory services PLUS CSRT and the crew of Rescue 193 combined to complete an safe, efficient and effective rescue of the casualty.
My only other comment is to say that I find that in today's society, people are often too ready to make judgements about other people and their actions without knowing the full facts. Part of the ethos of our team (and indeed all of the Mountain Rescue & Cave Rescue Teams in England, Wales & Scotland) is that we do not pass judgement on those we rescue.

I ws involved in a tunnel fire in Central London a number of years ago, a TBM whose transformer caught fire and ignited the belt :ohmygod: about 1km in. The team were evacuated and the Fire Brigade were called. However, the FB had no experience of the environment inside the tunnel, and we ended up putting as many men into the tunnel as we had evacuated, using FB BA kit, to guide them to the location and discharge three extinguishers into the transformer casing. We could have done that ourselves.

Did you let the Burco boil dry then 😉

They came for a look around the Fylde Coastal Waters Scheme in Blackpool, but only made it to pit bottom, I think the 4km walk to the TBM & fact that they had missed the train in put them off somewhat!

When the Irish Sea decided to pay one of the other machines a surprise visit a few weeks later it was all the lads on shift that ended up saving the TBM and themselves, was touch & go as the pit bottom nearly sumped 😮
Funny thing was our drive had been rigged for comp air from the start but they didn't bother with the other drive!!!

On the same job & on a sadder note one of the sparkies was killed by dodgy Canadian wiring to a transformer on the third Lovat that had just arrived in the UK (a completely unnecessary death, the HSE made em re-wire the whole machine) 😞

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