Real-life 'Lassie' dog aids rescue of man injured near Tahoe National Forest – San Francisco Chronicle

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Nevada County Sheriff’s Search & Rescue officials reported that a dog ran 200 yards to alert crews of his injured owner’s hidden location before they transported him by air ambulance to medical care.
A snapshot of a border collie that Nevada County officials say helped rescue crews locate his owner after a 70-foot fall and complaints of broken bones.
Northern California rescue officials are crediting the dog of a man who fell 70 feet with guiding search crews to his injured owner.
“In true ‘Lassie’ fashion,” the border collie ran around 200 yards to alert members of a 25-person response team to his owner’s hidden location in the mountainous area near Tahoe National Forest, Nevada County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue officials said on social media.
Rescue crews were called in by Cal Fire on July 13, the officials said, after reports that a 53-year-old man had suffered the long fall and complained of broken ribs and a broken hip.
“At first we didn’t believe it because it sounded like a movie,” Sgt. Dennis Haack of the Nevada County Sheriff’s Office Search and Rescue told KCRA. “When they came back and actually described it to us, the reality was that they had followed the dog directly to the victim.”
The man, who was not named in the rescue description, was transported to an air ambulance after he was located under a camouflage tarp. KCRA reported that the dog, named Saul, was being cared for by a local nonprofit while his owner recovered from the injuries, which appeared to have occurred the night before the dog-assisted rescue.
“Great work and skill by all involved today,” Nevada County Sheriff’s Search & Rescue officials posted on Facebook.
Saul’s reward: The dog was transported back to Grass Valley and “given a well deserved dinner,” the officials said.
Lauren Hepler (she/her) is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @LAHepler
Lauren Hepler covers housing and neighborhood retail for The San Francisco Chronicle’s race and equity team.
Her past stories on housing, labor and climate issues have been published by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Guardian, among others. She was previously a staff economic reporter at CalMatters, Protocol and the Silicon Valley Business Journal.
Lauren grew up in Ohio, studied U.S. history at George Washington University and has a master’s degree from UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism.

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