Dog which fell more than 20ft down hole rescued after six-hour operation
A dog has been successfully rescued after falling down a 20ft hole.
The pet, a 12-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier named Maisy, plummeted approximately 6.5m into a winding pit whilst traversing moorland in the North York Moors region close to Scarborough on Friday.
Scarborough and Ryedale Mountain Rescue Team (SRMRT) worked for six hours to extract the animal from the confined underground space.
The operation in North Yorkshire required specialist cave rescue expertise due to the challenging conditions below ground.
Maisy's owner contacted emergency services after the dog disappeared into the narrow opening.
Mountain rescue volunteers, alongside cave rescue specialists and emergency services, coordinated efforts to locate and recover the trapped pet from the tight subterranean passage.
The incident occurred as Maisy was running across the moorland terrain with the crevice leading to a complex underground system.
SRMRT described the tunnel as extremely confined and winding in nature.
Once below the surface, the frightened animal became firmly stuck between massive amounts of earth and rock.
Rescuers arriving at the location tracked her position by following the sounds of her distressed whimpering from deep within the ground.
Multiple organisations, including North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service and North Yorkshire Police, collaborated on the complex extraction operation alongside SRMRT.
The Upper Wharfedale Fell Rescue Association (UWFRA) deployed cave rescue specialist Lucy, who navigated through exceptionally narrow passages to reach Maisy deep below ground.
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Volunteers used hammers and chisels to create additional space in the constricted passages, with smaller-framed team members able to access areas others could not.
Three rescuers positioned themselves in a human chain formation within the sinkhole to pass Maisy upwards.
The team opted against using ropes, which would have limited movement and risked dislodging rocks overhead.
After a number of hours, Lucy succeeded in bringing the dog back through the treacherous underground system.
Tony Heap, lead incident controller for SRMRT, recorded the final stages of the rescue on camera.
"There was something very heartwarming about working as a team to free Maisy," he said.
"I was first on scene and when I saw the hole Maisy had fallen down, I was quite worried because it was very tight."
He praised the immediate response from team members suited to the challenging conditions.
"Luckily we have several members of our team who are small and they instantly volunteered to help," he added.
"I filmed the final moments and you could see the tears in the eyes of everybody as that dog came out of the ground," Heap said.
Following her extraction from underground, Maisy was returned to her relieved owner at the surface.
In a statement on Facebook, SRMRT said: "It was an outstanding joint effort involving UWFRA, North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service, North Yorkshire Police and our own team members all working together for one successful outcome.
"Incidents like this are a great reminder that rescue rarely happens because of one team alone. It takes different organisations, different specialisms, and people willing to go to extraordinary lengths when it matters most.
"We’re hugely grateful to everyone involved. We’ll also be sharing donations generated from this post with the cave rescue team from UWFRA, whose specialist skills were vital in bringing this rescue to a successful conclusion."
Lucy and her teammates are currently fundraising for an upcoming stretcher hike challenge, on which more information can be found HERE.
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