WLBT 3 - Jackson, MS: Dog survives 24 hours underwater

Dog survives 24 hours underwater

By Bert Case - bio | email

Ross Barnett Reservoir, MS (WLBT) - Fancy, a four-year-old Chihuahua, survived under water, in an air pocket of a sunken boat, for more than 24 hours.

She was on a houseboat Labor Day weekend, heading for a hog cooking upriver. Fancy's owner, Rebel Barrett, and three other people, were also on board.

The boat hit a stump just south of Highway 43, in the river channel, and went down.

In the haste to get off the sinking 44 foot drifter houseboat, Fancy was forgotten. When she was missed, they thought it was too late to save her.

They went back 24 hours later, and found her alive. Her head was in an air pocket, with her body underwater.

Her owner, Rebel Barrett, recounted the moment they found her alive.

"Over to my right side I heard her little feet go too, too, too, too. I was almost like a whale going off the side of the boat" said Barrett. "I just got in the water and I grabbed her and I was crying, and screaming, and hugging her and kissing her and she was happy to see her mama."

Fifty-eight year old Robert Blaine, owner of the houseboat and a 10 year veteran scuba diver, actually went down and got the dog out of the air pocket.

"I just turned my head slightly, and I looked in and I saw her sitting there with her head on her paws, just shaking and quivering" said Blaine. "The air pocket was maybe two or three inches, just a little bitty pocket, but she was sittin up there in it. It's a miracle."

Barrett says the ordeal didn't really change her dog, except to make her a little more aggressive.

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