A plumber from Australia has been credited with saving the life of a 2-day-old puppy that slipped into a bathroom floor drain in Beenleigh, Queensland.
Joseph Egan, owner of The Brisbane Plumbers, told USA Today that when he received the phone call about the stuck pup around 10 p.m., he thought it was a prank.
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“I realized it was serious,” Egan said. “She was really quite panicked. You could really hear it in her voice that she wasn’t lying.”
The woman explained that two puppies had fallen into the drain and that she was able to pull one back out by grabbing its tail.
The second pup, however, was stuck tight in a bend of the pipe.
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Egan used a small CCTV camera to determine where the puppy was located. He safely cut the pipe accordingly to rescue the pup, which was whimpering loudly — a good indication it was still alive.
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“We were unable to pull it out by its feet so we had shake the pipe in a downward action in order for it to slide out,” The Brisbane Plumbers wrote on Instagram.
“It was pretty amazing that this little fella lasted over an hour in the drain and still managed to survive.”
Thankfully, the puppy sustained no injuries during the rescue.
Egan, who has been a plumber for 12 years, said he had never been in a situation like this one.
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“I’ve never, ever come across it and I don’t think I ever will,” he said.
“This was pretty unique for this situation to unfold and for the puppy to survive. It’s nothing short of a miracle, really.”
The relieved family was eager to name the puppy that had already experienced quite the adventure in its newborn life.
The children hoped to call the dog “Lucky,” but their father had other plans, joking that a more appropriate name would be “Dollars,” after all the money it cost to free the animal from the drain.
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“Although he did say it was money well spent,” the plumbing company wrote on Instagram.
In the end, the family settled on the name “Troopie,” because the young pup was such a trooper during the stressful hour it was stuck inside the pipe.
Egan returned to the family’s home to fix the pipe a few days later, and reported the puppy is doing well.
“It’s doing really well,” he said. “It’s a really nice little puppy.”
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