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Ranger, an 80-pound Great Dane and mastiff mix, suffered a
broken leg, scrapes and other injuries in his 230-foot fall from
a cliff along the Butte Creek Falls trailhead northeast of
Salem, officials said.
Ranger got separated from his owner late Tuesday while hiking,
the Oregon Humane Society said. On Wednesday, his owner returned
to the trail to search for his missing dog and spotted the
injured animal in the deep ravine.
His owner called the sheriff's office, who routed the call to
the specialized Oregon Humane Society Technical Animal Rescue
Team, or OHSTAR.
The volunteer rescue team is trained to save pets in crisis
situations, said Barbara Baugnon, a spokeswoman for the Oregon
Humane Society.
"It's an amazing group of volunteers who are trained to repel
down cliffs, rescue in rapids," she said. "It's pretty much
endurance when you're carrying a mastiff down a four-mile
trail," she added.
A team of seven volunteers used a basket to hoist Ranger to
safety and he was carried out of the area on a gurney.
This was at least the seventh time in the past year the team has
had to repel down a steep cliff to rescue a pet, Baugnon said.
(Reporting by Victoria Cavaliere in Seattle; Editing by Eric
Beech)
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