You have heard about cats getting stuck in trees. But how about a dog stuck 150 metres inside an underground pipe for two days?
That is where Tia the Patterdale Terrier found herself after chasing a rabbit through a field and into a narrow pipe in Swine, East Yorkshire.
Tia was on a walk with owner Mark Longley at around 3pm on Sunday 20th November when she spotted the rabbit. She followed it down a ditch which led to a pipe running the entire length of the field.
The pipe had a stop end, meaning there was only one way in and one way out. And with no room to turn around, Tia was stuck.
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Longley said: “I put my ear to the pipe and I could hear her, but she couldn’t come back. There was no way of her turning round. I just panicked.”
Mr Longley called the fire brigade but they were unable to reach Tia. The next port of call was drainage firm Clearaway – a company more used to removing pipe blockages caused by sewer fatbergs rather than a stuck dog.
Clearaway arrived on site with a crawler camera, a device normally used to inspect pipes for cracks which can then be sealed using an epoxy repair putty.
Instead of searching for points of failure within the pipe, the crawler camera was instead sent in to find the exact location of Tia.
Once she had been discovered nearly 10 metres down the pipe, it was over to workers from machinery hire firm Megaplant to free her. They brought a digger to the field, unearthed the pipe and then broke into it to finally release Tia.
She spent a total of two days inside the pipe before an emotional reunion with Mr Longley, who said the family were over the moon to get her home. “I didn’t think I would have my dog back alive,” he added.
Dogs disappearing down pipes is a surprisingly frequent occurrence. Another incident in Yorkshire from 2017 made headlines when Jet the Terrier managed to enter a complex underground maze of decomissioned pipes beneath a former brickworks site.
A monumental rescue effort was launched involving the RSPCA, the fire service, a local construction company and Yorkshire Water to release Jet.
Around 10 trenches two metres deep were dug to try and locate Jet. He was eventually found 90 metres away from where he entered the network after nearly 24 hours inside.
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