Bull terrier Elsie is rescued from sinkhole
The dog and her rescuer had to be hoisted out of the deep sinkhole in Thaba Tshwane.
A dog was rescued after two days at the bottom of a large sinkhole in Thaba Tshwane on Monday.
The sinkhole is located at the intersection of Christiaan Botha Avenue, Paul Kruger Road and Joachim Fourie Avenue and formed on March 28 last year.
A cyclist passing by the sinkhole on Monday morning noticed that a dog had fallen in.
“Around 07:30 [on Monday], I received a frantic call from Samantha Steenkamp, one of our volunteers, whose cyclist friend reported that a dog had fallen into a deep sinkhole,” said Pretoria Dog Rescue CEO Celia van Zyl.
“I immediately contacted another volunteer, Nykie, a member of the Military Health Training Formation.”
René Jansen (Nykie) and two other trained dog handlers rushed to the scene when they realised that professional assistance would be needed to rescue the dog.
They located the dog’s owner, who reported that Elsie, a bull terrier, had been missing for two days.
Jansen contacted the South African Air Force (SAAF) fire department as other responders arrived on the scene including residents and several security companies including Monitor Net and ADT.
“To everyone’s relief, the SRU tactical unit arrived with a brave and very competent young man, who attached a rope to the SRU bakkie and abseiled down the steep side of the sinkhole.”
Van Zyl said that the man was able to hoist Elsie out.
“The dog immediately realised that a human had arrived to help her, and she approached him with a wildly wagging tail.
“I can only imagine how excited she must’ve been after two nights in that hole – no water, no food, no way out,” said Van Zyl.
Jansen told Rekord the teamwork and the bravery of the man from the tactical unit made for an easy rescue.
“Immediately after she was hoisted out the sinkhole and safe, we did a first parade [a thorough physical check-up] on the dog.
“There was no physical injury,” she said.
Jansen used her knowledge and experience working with dogs to calm Elsie down.
Elsie was dehydrated, so Jansen made sure she didn’t drink too much water to avoid her going into shock.
Pretoria Dog Rescue prepared a kennel for Elsie and lined up a vet to check that she had no long-term health issues before her owner was located.
Elsie was hoisted from the sinkhole at about 09:00, however, the rescuer was now stuck at the bottom of the sinkhole.
He spent an hour at the bottom before a SAAF fire truck used its winch and a very long rope to bring him back to safety.
A prefabricated concrete wall had previously been built around the sinkhole to keep the area safe and the rescuers said that an additional wall was set to be erected around the sinkhole to prevent a similar accident in the future.
Centurion has about 55 sinkholes currently, with costs reaching into the millions to repair large sinkholes.
The 10 to 15m deep sinkhole that Elsie fell into is one of the largest, and is located on military land.
According to ward 57 ward councillor David Farquharson, sinkholes are the responsibility of the land owner to repair.
Farquharson previously told Rekord that two large sinkholes in his ward had cost the metro more than R50 million to repair.
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