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| Thursday, September 20,
2001
Picture
Gallery:
The Pentagon's Heroic Rescue Dogs |
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ARLINGTON, VA — Since last week's wave of terrorist
attacks hit Northeast USA, there have been hundreds of dogs and
thousands of people directly involved in the crucial search-and-rescue
operations. But numbers alone do not prove an army's mettle;
sometimes just a single person—or a single dog—can define a nation's
tenacity.
In this pictorial, we follow
"Gus" and Ed Apple of the Tennessee Task Force One Urban
Search and Rescue Team into the torn wreckage of the Pentagon
building. |
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| ABOVE: Gus and his partner
await the OK to move in. Unlike the WTC rescuers in New York City,
Pentagon rescue teams had the opportunity to first construct makeshift
columns and structural braces to fortify the crumbling site.
(Photo: Sep 14, 2001, FEMA News / Jocelyn Augustino) |
| Inside the Pentagon, the scene is one
of widespread devastation and ruin. The daunting task of searching
the entire area is distributed amongst four 60-member search-and-rescue
teams with a total of about 15 certified rescue dogs.
(Photo: Sep 14, 2001, FEMA News / Jocelyn Augustino) |
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| A human's senses could barely
distinguish a chunk of concrete from a charred file cabinet, but a
Labrador's nose knows exactly what to look for. According to the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),
the best dogs for this type of work are Labrador Retrievers, Golden Labs
and Border Collies.
(Photo: Sep 14, 2001, FEMA News / Jocelyn Augustino) |
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"Most of the dogs now in use were puppies from
animal shelters that were tested to see if they had the drive to keep searching."
— Lori Mohr, National Disaster Search Dog Foundation |
Gus raises a howl, signaling that he
may have found something. Unfortunately, no survivors were
recovered from the Pentagon disaster.
(Photo: Sep 14, 2001, FEMA News / Jocelyn Augustino)
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| After a 12-hour shift, the rescuers
rotate. Gus and his team take a well-deserved break.
(Photo: Sep 14, 2001, FEMA News / Jocelyn Augustino) |
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