James and Bill Montiver thought they’d lost everything. The couple managed to survive a landslide that destroyed their home and belongings on August 26. But what they couldn’t stomach was the thought they’d never see their dogs Cassie and Alani ever again. The dogs went missing during the tragedy, but the hard work of local fire crews made the impossible happen.
The Montivers were worried they’d never see their dogs again. Four-year-old Alani and 8-year-old Cassie were still missing five days after the devastation.
According to the Juneau Empire, James explained by phone that “a lot of people” in their community were also worried about Alani, a white Maltese/Shih Tzu, and Cassie, a miniature long-haired Dachshund. James could remember the moment that he and his husband realized they’d made it out of their home with minor injuries, but alive. They then turned their attention to their pets.
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“We knew that the dogs were still in there from the beginning, and we tried everything we could to get them, but they didn’t respond and they didn’t answer, so we thought the worst, but the first responders wouldn’t let me stay in the house,” James recalled.
“They were trying to get us out, and it took an hour for them to chainsaw Bill out of there, and they said at that point, they were going to try and go in and see if they could find the dogs,” he added. “It was pretty dark at night and, of course, there was no power there, and they were using flashlights, but they didn’t find them.”
But they didn’t give up hope. Five days later, KFD Chief Rick Hines tried to look for the dogs again. He “spent an hour crawling through the house looking for stuff, seeing if he could find anything and (the dogs) never made a sound,” James said. “He had no idea they were in there.”
Two days later, a “whimper” was heard coming from the rubble.
“Everybody freaked out,” James recalled.
The noise made them look again, Firefighters who were about to leave for the day decided to stay. “Everybody attacked the house going through to see what they could find, and finally one of the girls said, ‘I see an eye! I think I see an eye — it blinked at me!” he recalled.
The woman who found the dogs was KFD firefighter/medic Crystal Schleiff. She told the news outlet she was about to end her shift when her boss told her about the whimper. She “immediately” volunteered to stay.
Schleiff managed to crawl through the house, over and around collapsed walls and the broken down ceiling, until she heard the two dogs near the couch.
“I saw that couch from the wall — from that three-foot void space — and I had the flashlight on on my helmet, and I happened to catch those glints of eyes and I was like, “I see eyes! They’re blinking at me!’ and I got really high-pitched and excited,” she explained.
Seconds later, she saw a second pair of eyes. Both dogs were okay! Schleiff and another one of her peers managed to scoop the dogs up and bring them to their relieved owners. The dogs were in good health after all they’d been through.
“We are so blessed and thankful for everything (the first responders) have done, the extra they’ve gone into to help us,” James said. “The entire community has been absolutely amazing and so giving and supporting and we are just blessed and humbled by it all.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-06 08:30:00
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