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<p>FORTY FORT &#8212; Dawn Miklich remained a little shaken but thankful Friday morning about 12 hours after her two dogs, Mellie and Malarky, were saved from an abandoned well that collapsed in the backyard of her Oak Street home.</p><p>Miklich said she realized something was wrong when Malarky, a Jack Russell, didn&#8217;t respond when she shook a box of treats to get the pooch back inside the house.</p><p>When Miklich went out back to find her dogs, she discovered they were at the bottom of a hole that opened up adjacent to a detached garage just before 8 p.m. Thursday.</p><p>&#8220;I put both my dogs out in the yard and only Mellie (an English Springer Spaniel) came back to the door. I rattled a box of treats to get Malarky to come inside but she didn&#8217;t come. I walked back in the dark and noticed both my dogs were in a hole and I immediately called 911,&#8221; Miklich said.</p><p>A team of first responders worked together to remove the two dogs from the sinkhole.</p><p>Floyd Young, an assistant fire chief for Kingston/Forty Fort Fire Department, said when firefighters arrived, a carefully coordinated plan was put in place due to the dangerous situation.</p><p>&#8220;Because the dogs were in a confined space about 14 feet below grade, we have to consider responders&#8217; safety due to the ground being loose, the ground being wet, the subsidence was under a building that we had to consider became unstable and we didn&#8217;t know about the air quality,&#8221; Young said. &#8220;You just can&#8217;t send people underground fearing the trench would further collapse and the responder and dogs would be killed.&#8221;</p><p>Young said the subsidence actually had two depths with the deepest being 14 feet where the smaller dog, Malarky, was submerged in water.</p><p>&#8220;What we did was we called in Plains Township Technical Rescue Team and a few of our guys are on the technical team. We used plywood and four-by-fours to stabilize the hole and put a ladder in the hole and put a firefighter on a rope and we did air monitoring.</p><p>&#8220;We sent the firefighter down the ladder and borrowed a snare from the Swoyersville Canine Unit, and we are able to get the bigger dog (Mellie) out. The second dog was in water and she was becoming hypothermic. As soon as we grabbed the second dog, we dried it off and wrapped it in a thermal blanket and Forty Fort police Sgt. Adam Michaels took off with the dogs to the veterinarian,&#8221; Young said.</p><p>Miklich contacted her veterinarian, Dr. Mark Stair of the Trucksville Dog and Cat Hospital in Shavertown, who waited for Michaels to arrive with the dogs.</p><p>&#8220;Dr. Stair was waiting with the door open when Sgt. Michaels arrived,&#8221; said Young. &#8220;Being all dog lovers, we wanted a good outcome but we needed to follow the rules. It was a successful rescue and a great team response from all.&#8221;</p><p>Miklich said Mellie and Malarky are doing well at home and were heard and seen barking from the back door. She has lived in her Oak Street home for more than 30 years and had no idea an abandoned well was in her backyard.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m thankful for the firefighters and police and my veterinarian,&#8221; Miklich said.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">A neighbor looks at a 12-foot hole in the backyard of an Oak Street property in Forty Fort on Friday. Dawn Miklich&#8217;s two dogs, Mellie and Malarky, fell to the bottom of the hole Thursday night and had to be rescued by first responders. The hole opened up from the site of an old well. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/web1_TTL012619hole1-4.jpg</photo0><caption0>A neighbor looks at a 12-foot hole in the backyard of an Oak Street property in Forty Fort on Friday. Dawn Miklich&#8217;s two dogs, Mellie and Malarky, fell to the bottom of the hole Thursday night and had to be rescued by first responders. The hole opened up from the site of an old well. </caption0><photoCredit0>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Abandoned collapsed in Forty Fort backyard</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Ed Lewis</p><p>elewis@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div>

Firefighters save dogs from sinkhole in Forty Fort