Saving the day: Dog’s barking alerts owner to injured hiker in Arizona mountains
Apr 28, 2016, 9:03 AM | Updated: 11:24 am
(Facebook Photo)
(Facebook Photo)
PHOENIX — It was like a movie: an injured hiker stranded in the snow and darkness, no help in sight. Until a dog’s barking started a chain of events that led to rescue.
Flagstaff police said a dog helped lead them to a hiker who was hurt and stranded April 16 at the base of Mount Elden during a snowstorm.
The Arizona Daily Sun reported Officer Melissa Seay said the hiker would have died in the freezing temperatures on April 16 if it hadn’t been for Marley the dog.
The 2-year-old black Labrador mix heard the man’s cries for help in the middle of the night.
The dog’s owner, John Paul Roccaforte, said he let Marley go outside into the cold around 1 a.m. when he started barking and wouldn’t stop.
“He just wouldn’t let up. He was relentless,” Roccaforte told the paper.
Roccaforte said he went outside and eventually heard someone calling for help.
The hiker later told authorities he had fallen and been unable to walk. He was found in a rocky area covered by trees, wearing a T-shirt, pants but no coat. The temperature was 32 degrees, which is the freezing point of water.
The man, in his mid-20s, was taken to a hospital.
Afterward, Roccaforte said the dog “we was like, ‘Yeah, I’m just doing my job.’ ”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
