By Oliver Lees
The Woodend unit of the Country Fire Authority (CFA) assisted in completing a thrilling rescue on Friday night after a dog fell down a mine shaft in the Wombat State Forest.
Woodend CFA captain Mike Dornau said the unit received a call for assistance around 9.50pm on Friday, from two men who were out late walking their dog named Terry.
“It was very, very irregular, there’s not a lot of mine shafts around here, and to have it happen at that time of night as well,” Mr Dornau said.
Mr Dornau said his unit quickly responded to the call by venturing out to the call location.
Led by Tim Duff and with Mr Dornau controlling back at base, a team of CFA volunteers travelled through the forest to the shaft location.
After establishing a perimeter and using a vehicle for lighting, Mr Duff and his team estimated the depth of the mine shaft to be 16 metres.
Mr Dornau said his team were glad to be able to see Terry alive and moving around at the bottom of the shaft.
“I’m not sure exactly what they [the two males] were doing out there so late,” Mr Dornau said.
“If it was a human, it’d be quite amazing to be able to survive a fall like that without major injury.”
Due to the nature of the call for assistance, the CFA’s specialist mine rescue team Oscar1 was called to provide technical assistance.
“There’s an enormous amount of rigging they set up,” Dornau said.
“It’s like a mini mining exercise. They lowered one of their members down into the mine, and they put a harness around the dog. Then they pull the team member up in the pulley system with the dog.”
The Woodend crew members finally returned to the station at 1.30am.
Mr Dornau said the two men out walking their dog were extremely grateful to have Terry returned to them safe and sound.
“We’d love to give a huge pat on the back to the Oscar[1] team. It was really difficult in the middle of the night. All we did was find the location and guide them, they did all the hard work,” he said.
