the terrified dog tries in vein to scale the wall. he slips, falls into the river and nearly gets swept away before the paramedic lungs after him. but the panicked pooch fights to get away. once i made contact with the dog, he tried to defend himself. the dog attacks st. georges biting his arms and hands. the dog is wet. he s cold. it s incredibly loud and windy. these helicopters generator upwards of 100-mile-an-hour winds. it s not surprising the dog started fighting back. i couldn t get angry at the dog for doing what dogs do. with the canine s jaws clamped around one arm, st. georges makes a grab for his collar with the other. i had his body, so i had a good level of control. i was just making sure to get everything positioned well enough once we were hoisted out of the water i d still be able to maintain control.
telling us they were getting heavy rains at their location, which is only a couple miles away, which means that water is going to be coming to us in fairly short order. that s not the only serious risk they are facing. the dangers of this mission in particular were the proximity to overhead wires. the dog was fairly close to a power station on the land. adding to their concern, the crew didn t know how long the dog can fight the raging currents and the helicopter s fierce winds. the dog looked like he was getting very tired. he started struggling a bit. local news cruise capture these dramatic images as st. georges is lowered into the swiftly moving river. as i was getting to him, the water was moving, and i couldn t tell whether the dog was trying to get away from me or whether he was losing his footing and about to be taken down river. as st. georges approaches,
i don t want to watch a dog die in the river when i have the capability to do something about it. there s no way any of us would sit there and watch that. even with all the media coverage of the dramatic rescue, it takes a week for vernon to be reunited with his owners. turns out his real name is spiky and his family had no idea what happened to him after he got out of their backyard. st. georges and bowman are recognized by animal add kay khasy for saving spiky s life. it s an honor st. georges takes in stride. the humble paramedic insists he s no hero. it s all in a day s work. there are 3,000 firefighters within the city of laejs and i don t think there s any one of them that would not have done what i did and i can really almost say that for any firefighter across the country. it s what we do.
local news cruise capture these dramatic images as st. georges is lowered into the swiftly moving river. as i was getting to him, the water was moving, and i couldn t tell whether the dog was trying to get away from me or whether he was losing his footing and about to be taken down river. as st. georges approaches, the terrified dog tries in vein to scale the wall. he slips, falls into the river and nearly gets swept away before the paramedic lungs after him. but the panicked pooch fights to get away. once i made contact with the dog, he tried to defend himself. the dog attacks st. georges biting his arms and hands. the dog is wet. he s cold. it s incredibly loud and windy. these helicopters generator upwards of 100-mile-an-hour winds. it s not surprising the dog started fighting back. i couldn t get angry at the dog for doing what dogs do. with the canine s jaws clamped around one arm, st. georges makes a grab for his collar with the other. i had his body, so i had a g
st. georges is able to secure the german shepherd mix by the collar and nods to bowman, the signal to begin the airlift. seconds later, they are high above the surging waters, little relief to the dog. once he was in the air, obviously this is an environment this animal has never been in 30 feet in the air. he actually starts trying to swim. that s the closest thing he can relate this experience to is back in the water. bowman quickly lowers st. georges and the dog onto a nearby bridge where they are immediately met by other rescue personnel. the traumatized canine is rushed to a local animal shelter where he s dubbed vernon, after the area of l.a. in which he was rescued. vernon escapes the ordeal