BRECKENRIDGE, Colo.—A dog has been found alive and in good shape after spending eight days trapped under rubble left by an explosion that leveled a business and critically injured her owner.
Lulu, an 8-month-old Springer Spaniel, was rescued Sunday when searchers heard her whimpering from deep inside the debris left by the April 19 explosion.
“I’m happy,” Lulu’s owner, Brian Mislanski, he told The Associated Press Tuesday from St. Anthony Central Hospital in Denver. He declined to comment further, but friends who are caring for Lulu said they took her to visit him with permission from the hospital.
The hospital said it couldn’t discuss Mislanski’s injuries or condition.
Breckenridge veterinarian Christine Murphy said Lulu suffered mild dehydration and had some trauma to her left eye. Murphy said she probably survived by drinking melting snow and eating food she found in the debris.
“Considering what she went through, she looked great and was in very good spirits,” Murphy told the Summit Daily News in Tuesday’s editions. “She is definitely one tough cookie.”
The building housed Good Times Adventures, a snowmobiling and dogsledding business. Mislanski is a van driver for the business and at the time of the explosion was house-sitting for managers who lived in an apartment in the building.
Fire officials said Tuesday it could be a week or two before the cause of the explosion is known, but they did not believe it was intentional or criminal.
Good Times owner Brian Holt told the Rocky Mountain News the explosion came after a gas leak.
Holt said friends had searched the nearby woods for Lulu, figuring she wouldn’t have survived if she were caught in the rubble.
Holt said he and others were sorting through about 6,000 square feet of debris for personal items Sunday when they heard her.
“We turned off the radio and started calling out Lulu’s name. Then we heard some yelping,” he said.
“After 45 minutes of frantic digging, we found her laying in a crawl space under 15 feet of rubble,” he said. “She basically had a two story building on top of her.”
Holt did not return phone messages Tuesday from The Associated Press.
