A scruffy dog named Benji was rescued Wednesday in Las Vegas, Nevada, after heavy rains trapped him inside a storm drain.
Benji’s owner, a homeless woman from Colorado living in a tunnel underneath Flamingo Road, said the weather caught them by surprise.
“We were down there, and the water just started rushing through. There was a levy that we thought might withstand it. We just ran through the water tunnel. There’s a long tunnel. I was trying to get some kind of rope to help him,” she said.
The record rainfall was the first to hit the Las Vegas Valley area in nearly two months, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
When a passerby named Paul heard Benji barking, he called local authorities for help.
Officers from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and Animal Control showed up just after 9:00 a.m. equipped with ropes, headlamps, and a blanket for the seven-year-old Pyrenees-Chow mix.
“The people down there take care of him,” Paul said of Benji’s friends. “He eats well and he’s a happy dog.”
Thankfully, the officers and their helpers were able to lift Benji out of the drain to safety.
Members of the Las Vegas homeless community tried to salvage their belongings as the water flooded their encampment Wednesday.
“Most of these people, the things that they’ve collected over the months and years that they’ve been out here, most of them lost everything that they have,” said Jason Lilly, who works with the Help of Southern Nevada outreach team.
However, Benji’s owner stated that she is glad to have him by her side once more following the rescue.
“He keeps us safe at night,” she said of her beloved pet. “He’s like our little guard dog. We weren’t prepared at all. It came out of nowhere.”