Lab rescued from 85-foot well

ETHEL, Wash. – Deiter, a 7-year-old yellow lab, is licking his wounds after spending several hours treading water at the bottom of an 85-foot well Wednesday.

“He’s pretty beat up and pretty cut up,” said his owner, Mark Haskins, who runs Mark’s Taxidermy Artistry in Motion on U.S. Highway 12 in Ethel, a southwest Washington town. “But he’s resting quite peacefully.”

Volunteer firefighters from Salkum and Onalaska, along with members of the Haskins family, spent nearly two hours trying to pull the dog out of the hole, which was hand dug when the house was built in 1890. The well had been covered with wood, but that wood gradually rotted away.

At some point Wednesday, Deiter fell in.

Haskins’ wife, Patti, saw Deiter at the bottom of the well when she went to check the mail and has no idea how long he had been down there.

Time was of the essence because Deiter had been struggling to keep his head above water for hours. While the Haskins slowly drained the well, the firefighters made several attempts to lasso the dog or lure him into jury-rigged contraptions with little success.

Mark Haskins, hampered by a recent serious chest surgery, was on the verge of tears at several points throughout the ordeal. Deiter was his prized hunting dog, and they’d caught ducks and pheasants over the past several years.

“If Dad didn’t just have his surgery, he’d have been down (in the well),” said his son Seth.

Eventually, one volunteer went home and grabbed a salmon net, which was tied to a rope and lowered into the well.

Volunteer firefighter Don Huntley was manning the net when Deiter got caught in it.

“I felt the weight in the net and I said, ‘Let’s go.’ ”

The firefighters and Haskins’ sons slowly pulled the dog nearly nine stories up the well to safety. Deiter emerged wet and cut. He is taking pain medication and antibiotics.

As for the well, Haskins said, “That baby is covered up.”