ESTEVAN - An Estevan couple's quick thinking, while they were vacationing in northwest B.C. earlier in the summer, enabled them to rescue a dog.
Elizabeth Carbino and Brad Smith were visiting family in the region. While out for a drive, Carbino kept travelling down a highway until they reached a boat launch.
"This lady came up. She looked very distressed. I noticed her dog leash but no dog. I love animals, so I wanted to pet her dog, and the dog wasn't there," Carbino said in an interview with the Mercury and SaskToday.
When Carbino asked if the woman was okay, she said her dog fell in the river and she couldn't get him out.
"I ran over to the van to get Brad, and I told him we have to help this lady. Her dog's in the river and she can't get to him. So, it was the right place at the right time," said Carbino.
Carbino and Smith have a chihuahua, a miniature dachshund and two Siamese cats.
The woman is Sandra O'Connor, who lives in Langley, B.C. In an email, she noted her husband passed away from cancer last October and her father died from cancer in March. She and her border collie Bamsi – a dog her husband had picked out and loved – were on a road trip to the Yukon and Alaska, visiting friends along the way.
O'Connor was travelling from Terrace to Prince Rupert when she stopped for a break at a picnic area on the Exchamsiks River, which is a short drive from the main highway.
"This is a remote area of northern B.C., and other than commercial trucks and a few vehicles, there is not a lot of traffic on this route," said O'Connor.
After lunch in the picnic area, she walked her dog on his leash. There was a small creek running underneath a bridge feeding into the river; as her dog was thirsty and she didn't think she could safely manoeuvre the bank, she let him off his leash to have a drink.
"I'm not sure to this day how it happened, whether he saw something off in the distance and chased it over the embankment or he looked over the embankment and it gave way, but a split second later, I heard a giant splash and my dog was gone," O'Connor said.
She came as close to the edge as she could – she estimates it was at least 10-12 feet straight down – and she could not see Bamsi but could hear him when she called.
"I ran to another point that jutted out along the embankment and from that view, could just see a bit of his head. I was calling for him, hoping he could swim towards the little creek he had just had a drink in but in hindsight, I'm grateful that did not happen as he probably would have ended up in the icy Exchamsiks River and been pushed out into the Skeena."
She realized she couldn't rescue Bamsi and he wasn't able to get to safety on his own, so she ran towards the bridge thinking she would find an emergency number on an information kiosk.
As she was approaching the bridge, she saw Carbino getting out of a minivan. O'Connor ran up to Carbino, explained the situation, and Carbino explained her partner was used to running up and down rocky cliffs and turned to him for help.
"At great risk and peril to themselves, she [Elizabeth] was lying on the ground, reaching over the embankment and communicating with my dog. She told me she could see Bamsi had actually fallen in between some large branches and debris and was stuck – and her partner made at least two or three attempts scaling the embankment in different ways and finally got close enough to Bamsi, grabbed the handle on his harness and got him out of the water."
Carbino and Smith recall the side of the embankment was very soft and could have caved in at any time. Smith said he had to climb down twice, first to assess where the dog was and get a line of sight, and then reposition himself to get where the dog was. He moved a log to stand on it, reached over, grabbed Bamsi, and showed the dog its leash to gain its trust.
"I lifted the dog up, and Elizabeth was there to grab the leash and just lead the dog in the right direction," said Smith.
All they could think about was saving the dog after all O'Connor had been through.
O'Connor repeatedly asked them not to risk their lives for Bamsi and then repeatedly told them they were angels sent from heaven.
"There's no earthly reason why a young couple from Estevan, Saskatchewan, should have pulled into this remote area when they did. I really hate to think what would have happened had God not sent them to me and Bamsi," said O'Connor.
Despite Carbino and Smith's wishes, O'Connor gave them a reward with the money from her purse. O'Connor didn't think it was sufficient, so they met up again later in the day, and O'Connor gave them $500, explaining to them they saved two lives that day – hers and Bamsi's.
"I don't know emotionally how I would have made it through a third loss in less than a year," said O'Connor.
Carbino and Smith didn't do it for a reward, they did it because she believes there isn't enough kindness in the world
"She wouldn't let me leave without the money. She shoved it in my pocket … and told me if she had the money, she would have emptied her bank account, because she was so grateful and everything."
If you see someone in distress, Carbino encourages kindness, because you never know what they are going through. Every little bit of help matters in the world.
The couple hasn't talked to O'Connor since that day, but they're glad they were there to help her.
