Watch the report HERE››
(WBBJ) – HARDIN COUNTY, Tenn — A dog needed rescuing Friday after being trapped in a 45-foot cave in the Hardin County woods.
“I really didn’t think he was coming out of that hole,” Buddy’s owner, Caleb Hudgens said. “I wasn’t gonna let him starve to death down there. I really couldn’t think of what to do.
Hudgens said the pair went hunting Thursday night on his cousin’s land, when the GPS system attached to the dog’s collar stopped working.
“He went about 200 yards in trees and started working the track again, and my tracking system lost signal,” Hudgens explained. “I went over to the last place it picked up, and there was about a 30-foot drop- off he was in the bottom of.”
Rescue officials said it was much deeper and dangerous than they expected.
“This wasn’t a man-made well. It was a cave,” Director of Animal Services for Hardin County, Debbie Nowicki said. “It did not have supported sides. It had ledges and ruts in the walls that could have given way at any time so it was an unknown going in.”
Rescuers did have to put a muzzle on the four year old to keep both the fireman and Buddy safe, but they said this is something they’ve trained to be able to do.
“We do train for it, and its not something we do everyday of course, but we do train for it and we are prepared to do rope rescues like this,” Hardin County Fire Chief, Melvin Martin explained.
Rescue officials said they recommend marking any known openings like these on properties to keep accidents like these from happening
