A company using an iPEK sewer inspection crawler recently saved a small dog that had crawled into an old, abandoned sewer pipe in Switzerland. Blacky was on a hunting trip with his owner when he got into the small pipe and couldn’t find his way out. It was unclear how far the dog had gone into the sewer pipe and whether he would ever find his way out again.
The hunter called Liaudet Pial Inc. – the fourth largest sewer inspection company in Switzerland, based in Worben in the canton of Bern – which uses iPEK camera inspection systems daily. The company, which cleans and rehabilitates sewer systems, leapt into action.
The sewer was no longer active, and the crew could not find a manhole for a person to access. So they brought in an excavator to begin digging an access point in an open field as the evening grew darker. As prospects for a successful rescue dwindled, the rescue crew pressed on.
Inserting the iPEK ROVION CCTV crawler through the small entrance pipe, Liaudet Pial Inc. found Blacky about 80 meters (260 feet) away, looking back at them through the video monitors in the service truck. Thanks to the locating sensor integrated in the camera head, the crew was able to determine Blacky’s exact position, even in the large open field.
It seems Blacky became curious about the camera lights and excavator sounds and sensed the efforts to rescue him. He slowly followed the camera light to the exit and the excavator work could be stopped.
After three hours of rescue work, the overwhelmed owner was able to hold his beloved dog Blacky in his arms again, safe and sound.
