The dispatcher’s broadcast to Cowlitz County sheriff’s deputies fell into the category known among first responders as “a situation.” That’s in-house lingo for a call so bizarre you unconsciously pause a moment to wonder if it’s a prank.
But this call was very real.
It began last Sunday when the dispatcher relayed information about a 9-1-1 call for help. It had seemed routine at first but turned strange when the caller provided more details. The man on the phone said he and his dog were stuck on a small ledge hanging more than 100 feet over the Kalama River in a remote area off Kalama River Road.
Deputies James Doyle and Landen Jones, each in their own patrol cars, responded to the call.
Nathan Mueller, who lives in the area, had been looking for his bloodhound, named Jamison, after the dog had raced off and didn’t return. He could hear him barking but was unable to pinpoint the location. Finally, Mueller concluded the barking must be echoing off the sides of the river’s cliff faces. He tracked the sound to a plot of land that was not part of a park or any hiking trail.
It was there he found the howling Jamison, stuck on a small, natural ledge about 150 feet above the river.
How did the dog get down such a steep grade without tumbling off the side of the hill? Only Jamison knows.
Desperate to rescue his beloved pooch, Mueller followed Jamison’s cries over the side of the hill and made his way down, maybe 40 feet or so, to the dog. Then he realized what he’d done. Unable to safely move, he pulled out his cell phone and called 9-1-1.
“When we got to the scene we found his vehicle pretty quickly,” said Jones. “We heard this guy yelling for help and followed the sound.”
He and Deputy Doyle walked to the side of the hill and carefully peered over the side.
“There he was,” said Jones. “Yep, there was the dog, too.”
Firefighters with special equipment were on their way.
But the side of the hill, the new home to Mueller and Jamison, didn’t look stable. Doyle and Jones had both served in the U.S. Army and had trained extensively on how to use ropes to rappel down cliffs and mountains without a safety harness.
“We looked at each other,” said Jones.
One of them said: “If you’re good with it, I am, too. Let’s move down that hill and see what we got.”
They pulled rope out of the trunks of their patrol cars and came up with a plan. They each used their own ropes to anchor themselves separately to a massive tree at the top of the hill.
They stepped off the edge.
“We kind of scrambled down 35 feet,” said Doyle. “We used other ropes to anchor ourselves to a smaller tree. It was a steep drop, maybe another 100 feet to the river.”
Then Doyle went down farther to talk with Mueller while Jones manned his partner’s second rope, maintaining tension in case Doyle stumbled and fell. Having tension on the rope would halt the fall, much like a seatbelt would work in a car.
“Nathan is sitting on a little mud/rock ledge,” Doyle recalled. “I have no idea, and he had no idea, how his dog ended up there. I’m not even sure how Nathan got down there safely. If he’d fallen on the way down to get his dog, there was nothing to stop him.”
From his spot on the side of the hill, Doyle took stock of the situation with the experience of a man who’s been there before. He had multiple ropes, the tools of his trade with him.
“I’m 6 feet 2, 230, and Nathan’s big and the dog’s big,” he said. “We would have a lot of weight on that ledge. If the ground gives out, I was roped up, but Nathan and Jamison would just fall and keep falling.”
Doyle called up to Jones to let out the rope so he could get closer to Mueller for what he called “a hard conversation.” He told Mueller that his priority as a deputy was to save Mueller, not the dog.
And that presented a moral dilemma. Human over dog.
But he loved dogs.
Could they save both?
“The dog was on Nathan’s lap,” he said. “The only way I could get to Nathan to rope him up and get him up the hill was to move that dog. The dog was scared. I told Nathan if that dog starts falling, he had to let him go. I didn’t want him hanging on and have him get pulled off the ledge.”
Mueller, who told Doyle he’d served in the U.S. Marines, said he understood.
But he asked Doyle to do everything in his power to save Jamison.
That’s what Doyle wanted to hear. Jones, up above, too. They’re both animal lovers and have dogs in their homes.
So now, on the side of this steep hill, three veterans – all dog lovers – were trying, on a cold, blustery Sunday afternoon, to get out of a jam and start the new week right.
“My biggest issue became getting the dog out of the mix,” Doyle said. “I moved down the hill a bit where I could reach out to the dog. But you know, a bloodhound isn’t a small dog.”
Doyle fished a rope line through Jamison’s collar.
“He became uncooperative,” Doyle said. That was an understatement. The scared dog jerked backward, pulling his head completely out of his collar.
The humans there on the side of the hill held their breaths. Jamison managed to keep from falling off the ledge.
Doyle refused to give up on the dog.
“I stretched out and grabbed a scruff of his neck with one hand,” the deputy said. “Landen (Jones) kept the tension on the rope.”
Still holding on tight to Jamison, Doyle used his body to pin the dog against the side of the cliff. Free of the dog, Mueller told Doyle he felt safe on the ledge while Doyle concentrated on rescuing Jamison.
Like a cowboy wrangling a calf, Doyle used his free hand to run a rope around the dog’s body, pressing hard on the animal’s ribs to create a straitjacket of sorts that wouldn’t allow Jamison to wiggle or bolt.
“I said it was going to make his dog very uncomfortable,” said Doyle. “There was no guarantee. The dog could get injured, or something could go wrong, and he’d fall. Nathan told me to do what we needed to do.”
Doyle gave the signal.
From up above, Jones began pulling the rope, slowly dragging Jamison up the side of the hill.
“I was pushing the dog,” Doyle said. “We were moving inch by inch. And I mean, inch by inch.”
By then fire crews had arrived and were able to help Jones get Jamison over the top and onto level land.
Doyle then turned his attention to Mueller. He tied a rope around Mueller and the other end around his own body. That made it possible for both men to climb up the hill, together, with assistance from Jones, who was roped up to a tree about 30 feet from the top of the hill.
“I could tell how much it meant for Nathan to know his dog was fine,” said Doyle.
Soon, Mueller, Doyle and Jones were all safe.
Jamison – at the center of it all – was in high spirits and enjoyed getting attention from everyone at the scene.
Mueller shook hands and hugged both deputies.
“He told us he believed he would have died up there without us,” said Doyle. “I believe it was providence that Landen and I answered the call. We had the kind of experience needed right then. It was cold and wet, and he could have slipped on moss and fallen. It was a call meant to be.”
The job over, Doyle and Jones stowed their gear.
“We gave each other high fives,” said Doyle. “Then we moved on to the next call.”
