Alpha Firefighters Rescue Dog from Sinkhole

Alpha Fire Company firefighters came to the rescue of a dog that fell into an 8-foot sinkhole Wednesday morning in Lemont.

Frederick the Corgi was in the yard of a home on the 800 block of Elmwood Street at about 9:20 a.m. when he fell into the hole and his distressed owner called for help.

“It wasn’t a very easily observed hole. It was kind of small,” Assistant Chief Rusty Schreiner said. “So the dog was just roaming around the yard and fell in.”

Alpha crews responded, assisted by College Township Public Works. Schreiner said they assessed the air quality deep inside the hole and stabilized the ground beside it, building a hoist system for the rescue operation.

“Then we had to carefully make an entranceway bigger, because a sinkhole is sort of like an upside down mushroom; the stem is small and then it’s a big cavern underneath,” Schreiner said. “We had to make sure everything we were on was stable, anticipate the weight of our tripod.”

Assistant Chief Dennis Harris was then harnessed and lowered into the hole. He harnessed Frederick and crews pulled the dog out, followed by Harris.

The effort took about 25 minutes, Schreiner said.

Frederick was uninjured from his adventure, and his owner was relieved.

“The dog appeared unfazed, happy to be out of there,” Schreiner said.

It wasn’t the first time Schreiner and Harris were part of a team that pulled a pooch from a sinkhole. They rescued a golden retriever named Skye from a 15-foot sinkhole at Penn State’s Arboretum in February 2016.