Tessie

Last week we got quite the scare from Miss Tessie Bess.  We had gone down in the field to fix the fence and the dogs had gone with us.  Down where we were fixing fence is a culvert that runs under the road.  It's probably about 2 feet around and the dogs have always loved to crawl through it so I wasn't worried when Tessie headed that way.  When we finished the fence and started back to the house I noticed Tessie was no where to be seen so I went over to the culvert to see if she was still there.  She was laying about half way through, breathing kind of hard, but I just thought it was because it was cool in there and she was resting.

Tessie is about 14 years old, her hips are bad and she can't hear hardly anything.

Let me just say that it was late in the afternoon, the sun was starting to set and it was in the 30's so when Tessie didn't come out of the pipe, we got worried, on one side there was ice and quite a bit of water backed up.  On the other side there was a big snow pile that was melting and running into the pipe.  It was useless calling to her, she wasn't moving and couldn't hear.  I was pounding on the pipe, but she was just laying there looking at me.  I figured I should shimmy into the pipe and get her, so I laid down in the cold water and started to shimmy.  It was quickly apparent that with my coat and everything I was barely able to crawl in the pipe on my belly and I am claustrophobic...I got about all my body in and knew I couldn't crawl in there all the way.  I started to panic a little trying to get out and as soon as I was able to get out of the pipe told Bruce to call the fire department, because it was clear that we needed help.

First 2 police officers came, they were pretty useless.  I had to ask to borrow their flashlight to see what was going on.  They just stood around and did nothing.  Bruce finally convinced them to radio the fire chief, who brought out the fire truck and a couple of young guys to help us.  One of the guys, Trevor, suited up and finally climbed in the pipe.  I had been able to see that Tessie had one leg that had broken through the ice and was trapped in the cold water below the ice.  Because it was a hind leg, she just could get it free.  Trevor pushed her out of the hole she was in but she was so scared and her legs were so cold she couldn't move.  The fire chief said "if we don't get her out soon, the water will freeze up around her."  This was about 2 hours into the operation.  The young guy standing next to me on the other end of the pipe, said screw this, I'm going in.  So he took a noose on the end of a long stick and went in the other end where all the ice and backed up water was.  I should mention that I had been bailing water for about an hour and had made progress at emptying the pipe, but there was still a bit of water he had to crawl through.  Between the 2 guys they got the noose around Tessie and with one pushing and one pulling, they got her out.

We had brought towels and blankets to wrap her in.  Her legs were frozen stiff so the guys lifted her into the back of the Gator and I climbed in and laid on top of her and through the tears and everything we thanked the guys as we took Tessie home to warm her up and assess the situation.  After a couple hours of drying her, she perked up enough to eat and then stand and pretty soon she wanted to head to her bead in the garage.  I have never been so relieved in my life!

She is doing fine now, back to her old cranky self, although she clings to me and wants to be hugged and petted a lot more which I am happy to do.

The fire crew got a proper thank you from us and Tessie, chocolate cupcakes and a note with a smiling picture of Miss Tessie.  Thank You Kiowa Fire Department!  You guys ROCK!