It was a race against time for Arizona Humane Society emergency medical technicians who were called on a report of a goat crying underground. A homeowner notified the society on Tuesday, and a two-day rescue mission was underway with storms threatening to blow through the area.
In a press release from the Arizona Humane Society, emergency animal medical technicians discovered that a goat fell into an irrigation pipe but they were unable to pinpoint its exact location. Two hours after the search began, Andy Gallo and Sydney DeJoy, the responders, left for the day. They returned the next day with a snake camera to find the goat.
“Andy, Gracie Watts and EAMT in-training, Savana Wilcox, returned to the scene first thing in the morning armed with a snake cam, PVC pipes, shovels and a sledgehammer to break through the concrete and 12-inch irrigation pipe,” the press release read. “The EAMTs had to attach approximately 100 feet of PVC pipe to the snake cam in order for it to reach further into the irrigation system, but we were still unable to locate the exact location of the 8-month-old goat.
KTAR News reported technicians had to use shovels and a sledgehammer to break through concrete and the pipe.
“We could not lay eyes on the goat at all, we never saw him before we started chipping away,” Watts said in the release. “We just kind of went by faith as to where we thought he was.”
A goat was trapped in an irrigation pipe, which led to a successful six-hour rescue mission. Using a snake cam, PVC pipes, shovels and a sledgehammer, the emergency animal technicians were able to locate to… More
Bretta Nelson, a spokesperson for the Arizona Humane Society, told Newsweek Gallo managed to break through the pipe, and when he got his hand through, he received a friendly lick from the goat.
The goat didn’t sit still long enough for Gallo and the other rescue technicians to pull him out, and he turned around to walk in the other direction.
Luckily, the goat’s owner got his hands through another hole in the pipe and held the goat tight as rescue technicians got to work pulling the goat out.
The six-hour rescue mission was a success, and the team managed to beat another storm that rolled in just as the goat came out of the pipe without any major injuries. Nelson said the goat might not have made it if the team couldn’t get him out by the time the storm started.
Nelson said field technicians go out on about 9,000 rescues and investigations each year, but they typically look into cases involving companion animals, like cats or dogs. Nelson said this is the first time in her experience that a goat needed to be rescued from an irrigation pipe.
The goat was reunited with his owner on the farm he lives on and rejoined his fellow goats.
“It took a lot of ingenuity and every tool they had,” Nelson told Newsweek.