Firefighters rescue dog trapped 5 days between walls of Cincinnati home

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - Cincinnati firefighters rescued a dog trapped five days between the walls of a Northside home.

Firefighters responded to the 1600 block of Thompson Heights around 9:40 a.m. Sunday for a report of a homeowner hearing a dog crying behind the garage wall.

They realized the dog, Gertie, fell down a crevice and became trapped between two concrete walls.

Gertie’s owners, Connie Frick and Lynn Herman, describe her as a sweet dog and an excellent escape artist.

“She escaped as Lynn was coming in the front door on Tuesday, this last Tuesday the 13th at 2 p.m., went right into the woods,” Frick said.

They found Gertie in the garage before but this time, when she didn’t return right away, her owners and their loved ones put up posters around town.

Vanessa Roland says she alerted the neighbor who owns the garage and that neighbor climbed up a hill and saw the dog through a hole in the attic floorboards. The neighbor then called the fire department.

Roland called the number on the poster to alert Gertie’s owners.

“We were just excited. We were like, I can’t believe, cause we knew it had been a while, so we thought like this is exciting, and hopefully, she’s OK,” Roland said.

Frick said she thinks Gertie fell through the roof of Roland’s garage. “We’re just very happy and lucky and very grateful to our neighbors.”

Fire crews had to break the concrete with saws and a sledgehammer to rescue Gertie because they could not lift her out of the crevice.

After about 10 minutes, crews were able to break the wall and rescue the dog safely, firefighters said.

Roland says that she saw a flyer with the dog’s picture and called the owners.

Gertie was reunited with her owners, who say she is a little tired but fine otherwise.

“It was just so sweet, just wagging that little nub tail, and she was just so, she was so excited,” Frick said.

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