With dark clouds and lightning approaching, West Metro firefighters hurried to save a 7-year-old chocolate Lab stuck in a Jefferson County storm drain.
If the clouds opened up, rescuers would have had to abandon the 18-inch drainage pipe, and the dog, Cody, probably would have drowned.
But just as the wind rose and the rain pelted the ground Thursday evening, Cody emerged, looking a little disoriented and muddy but uninjured.
“I’m super excited he’s out,” said Sabrina DeSoto, whose father owns the dog.
Cody spent most of the day in the storm sewer.
He had been playing with neighbors’ dogs about 11:30 a.m. in the open space behind his house on Flora Way. While chasing a ball, he took a wrong turn and ended up in the open drain.
Neighbor Karen McCarty said there are several open drains and an open well behind the neighborhood that the county should seal up.
“Children could get stuck in there,” she said.
Micki Trost, spokeswoman for the fire protection district, said Cody had been stuck chest-deep in dirt and muck that firefighters had to scoop out.
Fire crews, with oxygen tanks in case fumes built up, worked in 20-minute shifts scraping out dirt and debris. Cody was stuck under the roadway about 40 feet away from the sewer drain and couldn’t move backward or forward.
Treats were sent down to calm the dog, and he would start barking only when firefighters left to change shifts.
Once the rain came, officials were contemplating pulling out the firefighters because they were in danger.
Had it rained heavily, firefighters would have been stationed on both sides of the drain in the hope that Cody would be pushed out alive.
“We’ll do everything we can to pull the dog out safely, but we have to make sure the firefighters are safe,” Trost said earlier.
Finally, crews were able to get a rope around Cody’s neck and pull him free.
Children cheered, and their parents clapped for the firefighters.
After a fire-hose shower, Cody was reunited with his family.
