Rescue of Zorka

An unusual rescue operation took place in the city of Cheremkhovo, Irkutsk region. The firefighters of the Cheremkhovo garrison of the fire department had to work hard, getting out of the cellar ... a cow. In addition to firefighters, employees of the local administration and even the head of the city of Cheremkhovo participated in the operation to rescue the animal.

And it was like this...

An unusual rescue operation took place in the city of Cheremkhovo, Irkutsk region. The firefighters of the Cheremkhovo garrison of the fire department had to work hard, getting out of the cellar ... a cow. In addition to firefighters, employees of the local administration and even the head of the city of Cheremkhovo participated in the operation to rescue the animal. And it was like this...

In the morning, the owners of the cow drove her out to pasture. The six-year-old cow Zorka peacefully nibbled grass on the lawn along with the whole herd in the area of ​​​​the former holiday village. Now there are ruins. The houses burned down, the place was overgrown with grass. At some point, Zorka moved away from the other cows and came across a beautiful place. The grass there was excellent, tasty and very juicy. She pecked at it calmly. Suddenly, not noticing the cellar overgrown with grass under their feet, the unfortunate animal flew head over heels down and got stuck tightly.

As she fell, Zorka scratched herself and bellowed plaintively. The cellar was small, only a meter and a half in size, about two meters deep. The cow could neither turn nor turn around. The exhausted and frightened animal spent several hours in a cold cellar until its owners missed it.

In the evening, when the whole herd returned home, the mistress, not finding her favorite among them, began to worry. They rushed to look for her. We ran to the favorite place of cows. There they heard a mournful mooing. They rushed to the place where the sound was coming from. Seeing her only nurse in the pit, Zorka's mistress almost fainted. They began to think about how to rescue the horned captive from the "imprisonment".

“I was in a state of shock - this is our only cow, everyone's favorite, the breadwinner of the whole family, one might say. And here is such grief. My heart bled when I heard her moo. I was confused, did not know who to turn to for help, where to call. Then, having calmed down, I decided to call the rescue service. Thank God no one made fun of me. And I don't know what I would do. Employees of the Ministry of Emergency Situations immediately arrived,” says Nina Yakovlevna, the owner of the cow.

The dispatcher of the Cheremkhovo fire brigade garrison accepted the call. Firefighters and employees of the city administration, including the mayor of the city of Cheremkhovo, the head of the housing and communal services department and a veterinarian, immediately left for the scene, despite the curiosity of the situation. Alexander Gorbachevsky, an employee of fire station No. 11, who took part in the rescue operation, says: “The pit was small, narrow. The entrance to the cellar was filled with foundation. We decided to expand the hole first by digging the foundation. For several hours they dug the ground with shovels and crowbars.

Then a female veterinarian descended into the pit to the cow. She gave a sedative injection. After that, Zorka became noticeably calmer. She lay doomed at the bottom of the cellar, no longer hoping to get out of the "dungeon". And the "rescuers" at the top decided how to proceed. Various options for extracting the animal have been proposed. They wanted to tie a rope to the horns. This scenario was rejected - you could break your neck. Then they wanted to pull her out with the help of a fire hose, wrapping the cow around the body. However, the huge weight of the animal (the cow was very large) would not have allowed lifting it without the use of special equipment. All is decided! "We need a crane!" - decided the participants in the rescue work. The city administration allocated a crane.

“I participated in such rescue operations several times, so I knew how to act,” says Yury Kurilov, senior fireman of Fire Department No. 11. - Having descended into the pit, I extended a fire hose under the body of a cow, which we later attached to the crane. Very carefully, with his help, we pulled her up." For Yuri, this is the fourth animal rescue operation. “Once in the village of Nizhnyaya Iret, Cheremkhovsky district, we pulled a cow out of the river,” he recalls. - She got stuck in a muddy place. She was so sucked in that she had to resort to the help of a tractor. They tied him by his hind legs and pulled him out. After her release, she was unable to move for an hour. Another case was similar, only two calves were already stuck. We were able to get one out of the river, the other drowned. Well, the last case - the cow fell into the ground. We pulled her out by tying a rope to her horns.”

When Zorka was on the surface, she could not even move. The hostess, the veterinarian, the firefighters rubbed her legs to restore blood circulation. After the "resuscitation" measures, the cow came to her senses, stood up on her own. She practically did not suffer, did not break anything, the only thing was that when she fell, she scratched her legs and sides.

“The hostess thanked us, she was so pleased that we did not refuse her help, we got her cow out of the cellar,” recalls Vladimir Zinoviev, the driver of fire station No. 11 in Cheremkhovo. “Yes, and how to refuse: a cow is, after all, a living creature, it’s a pity, after all ... Immediately after this unusual rescue operation, we rushed off to our usual, more familiar combat work - to put out a fire in the village of Mikhailovka.” Well, Dawn, who aroused half the city, will now bypass the ill-fated place...
Lyubov GABEEVA, press service of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia for the Irkutsk Region