Lake Forest Park Public Works employees rescue dog trapped in storm culvert

 From LFP Public Works

3:28am March 2, 2012

Lake Forest Park and Kenmore Public Works employees Kristian Kolberg and Scott Walker received an emergency phone call in the early morning hours of Friday, March 2nd from the Kenmore Police Department. Police reported a dog stuck in a Kenmore storm culvert.

Kolberg and Walker responded to the site and could hear the dog, Rainy - a long haired dachshund, upstream from a storm catch basin.

Photos courtesy Public Works. Rainy being held by her owner, with her rescuers.

Rainy’s owner explained that she disappeared Thursday night around 1:30 am. The owner was able to locate her because he heard whining coming from a storm water catch basin. Rainy likes to chase small animals and was most likely doing that when she got stuck. 

Rainy entered the storm system from an open culvert at the end of a ditch line. She followed the culvert into the catch basin and made a 90 degree turn into a 12 inch pipe. Once Rainy got about 8 feet up the pipe she tried to turned around and got stuck in the pipe.

Looking from the catch basin, Kolberg and Walker could see Rainy and determined that she was standing in about 2 inches of water. This was of great concern because the temperature at that time was at 34 degrees. The water that was in the pipe was continually flowing, not allowing any heat to remain around her. Coaxing wasn’t working.

Public Works contacted two vactor companies to dig down to the pipe so that they could break open the pipe. While waiting for the vactor trucks to arrive, they were able to relieve some of the water level in the pipe and reduce the amount that Rainy was standing in.

After about 15 minutes Rainy stopped whining and was much less responsive. Concerned that Rainy was not going to make it much longer, Kristian and Scott began hand digging. They reached the pipe about 30 minutes later, and broke into it using a digging bar. 

The rest of the story is told by the owner’s face. Another day at the office for the Lake Forest Park Public Works crew!