A dog has been rescued from an old mine shaft in Flintshire, after being stuck for nearly 16 hours.

Sam fell down the 100ft (30m) shaft while in a field with his owner near his home at Brynford near Holywell.

He suffered a dislocated paw and a cut to his head but was otherwise fine. He is now recovering at home.

North Wales Fire Service said it was a "very difficult rescue" as the shaft walls were crumbling.

They were called out by the RSPCA at 1800 on Saturday.
Seven-year-old Sam had been walking with his owner Dave Jones and his six-year-old son on their land when he disappeared.

He fell through undergrowth and straight down a 100ft shaft, left over from old lead and copper mining.

It took firefighters an hour to set up rescue equipment above the shaft

Mr Jones said: "We heard him hit the bottom and we couldn't detect a movement so feared the worst."

Then, with the help of the Grosevenor caving club and the RSPCA, they saw Sam was still moving.

Ian Williams, county operations manager for the fire service, said conditions were too dangerous to attempt a rescue that night.

"It was pitch dark and pouring with rain and the area has a steep slope on one side. We got lighting down there, and could see the dog sitting up.

"We decided to leave him there and at 8am this morning a rope rescue team from Colwyn Bay attended and we set up a pulley system."

A firefighter was hoisted down the shaft and saw the dog had a small cut above his eyes and has dislocated part of his paw.
Sam was put in an animal stretcher and the crew winched the dog and the firefighter up the mine shaft.

"It was a very difficult rescue, the mine shaft is very old and the walls were crumbling," said Mr Williams. "We had to be very careful lowering the firefighter down. It took an hour to set up the equipment to lower him down and 25 minutes to winch him down, the dog was panicking a bit, it then took 20 minutes to get them up."

Mr Williams said when the firefighter got to the bottom, Sam greeted him with a lick.

"He's a very good natured dog and we could hear him over the intercom making a real fuss of the firefighter - he must have been very relieved," said Mr Jones.

"We really grateful to all the rescuers - it was unbelievable really."

Sam was checked over by a vet, who put right the dislocation, and he was later recovering at home in front of the fire.

The shaft near a footpath, which was temporarily closed, has now been secured.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/7345180.stm 

A couple of thoughts - what were the fire brigade doing vanishing down mine shafts rather than NWCRO and, er, why wait until it gets light before going down into a dark mine?

---

This unfortunately seems to be the way a lot of FB's operate, (no different down here in Cornwall) and probably stems from being restricted by Health and Safety at Work Act.
Volunteer groups such as CRO's, are exempt from these regulations because they are not being paid to do the job.
However, because of this, alot of the paid rescue services adopt the attitude that if these people are exempt from H&S@Work then they must by default be acting in a dangerous manner, thus they don't call them out.
Leaving animals in shafts as too dangerous to rescue
can lead to owners trying to perform their own rescue with possible consequences more complex than a comparatively easy animal rescue.
I have stopped two such incidents after fire crews had left the scene telling the owners that their dog is dead, and these people are passionate about their cherished pets and willing to risk of their own necks. This could be avoided by the FB giving the owners the number of the local CRO which in the 21 years I've been involved with CRO, they have never done. Most times the CRO turn up and within an hour the animal and owner are once more united with no harm to anyone plus, an outing for the CRO which is always good.
If my house catches fire I won't be calling out the CRO!

They would have looked pretty daft if the dog had been dead the next morning. 😢

---

The Article mentions Grosvenor Caving Club were involved who are part of the NWCRO.

It would be interesting to hear the CRP version of events - of course they have to be called by the police in the first instance and masybe that didn't happen

Mike