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Rescuing man's best friend

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Luverne fireman rappels down 30-foot rock crevasse and pulls family's black Labrador to safety
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A black Lab named Finn is now known as “Lucky” after surviving a 30-foot fall into a rock crevasse at the Blue Mounds State Park quarry Sunday afternoon.
Finn and his 17-year-old companion, Jaxon Bliss, were hiking atop the quarry around 3 p.m. Sunday when the black Labrador slipped and fell in a gap between Sioux quartzite boulders.
“When I knew I wouldn’t be able to get to him, I called 911,” Bliss said.
“They (the firemen) figured out pretty quickly how to get him out, and they handled it really well.”
The Luverne Fire Department accessed the scene via the interpretive center parking lot and the upper cliff line trail with the mobile grass rig and the new four-door Ranger, which was packed with climbing gear and rescue personnel.
Fireman Tyson Facile, outfitted with a harness, rappelled down the narrow opening between rock walls and gently pulled Finn to safety as the rescue crew hoisted them above ground.
Fire Chief David Van Batavia deemed it a successful mission.
“We train for this,” he said. “Obviously we’re trained to rescue humans, but this was a bit more challenging in that we couldn’t tell the dog what to do.”
He said up to 10 men on the 31-member fire department train for technical rescues like this one, and Sunday’s event was a good way to put that training to use.
“It was great timing, because a lot of the guys who do this were around to help,” Van Batavia said. “I’ve been at this for four years, and it’s the first one I’ve been part of.”
Bliss was encouraged to talk to the dog to reassure him through the process that lasted roughly 15 minutes.
For the most part, Finn remained calm for the rescue and appeared mostly unharmed, except for an abrasion on the front of one shoulder.
“He was a good boy,” Bliss said.
He and Finn hitched a ride on the Ranger back to their car that was parked about a mile away.
The boy and the dog are in the process of moving with their family from Sioux Falls to Rock Rapids, Iowa.

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