Cade Lucas
While cats are known to have nine lives, the exact number for dogs is less clear, but judging by the recent travails of Werribee labrador/staffordshire terrier cross, Pepper, it’s certainly more than one.
On the afternoon of Saturday November 18 , Pepper’s young life looked about to end after her owner Kim Tunstall returned to their home in Slattery Street to find the one year old family dog impaled on a gate.
Ms Tunstall immediately called triple zero and members of the Werribee Fire Brigade soon responded, but optimism for Pepper’s survival wasn’t high.
“The situation for the dog was very serious at the time and a lot of us thought it probably wouldn’t make it to the vet let alone back to the family,” said Lieutenant Rohan Rizzoli who was among the 12 firefighters who arrived on the scene.
“On arrival our rescue team got to work straight away formatting a plan to extricate the dog from the fence using a variety of tools from our rescue truck. We cut the gate in a number of places and then freed the dog but it was still impaled by a part of the fence.”
Having rung ahead to alert staff at the nearby Green Cross Vet Hospital that an emergency patient was on the way, Pepper was whisked in for an x-ray which fortunately showed no damage to major organs.
However, with the spike impaled so deep into Pepper’s groin that it was almost protruding the other side, her survival was still far from assured.
“We then cut away more of the fence at the vet to allow the surgeon to come in and remove the spike from the dog,” said Lt Rizzoli who estimated that the entire rescue process, from their arrival at the Tunstall’s home to the end of the surgery, took less than an hour.
After three days of recovery, Pepper was well enough to stop by the Werribee Fire Station to thanks while on her way back home.
“Yeah it was a great moment, the whole crew was there,” said Lt Rizzoli of Pepper’s visit on the evening of Tuesday November 21.
“Often for us in our role in road crash rescue the outcome for the people we serve is not positive and leaves long lasting effects, so this was a really good moment for us. We often don’t find out what happens to patients either, so it was nice be reunited and see a positive out of a negative.”
