A terrier who was stuck underground for 56 hours miraculously survived the frightening ordeal before she was pried from the earth in a dramatic rescue video.
Flossie the terrier disappeared April 25, according to a TikTok posted by her owner Poppy Vernon. It shows someone digging a rather deep hole as voices call out for the dog. They assumed the 9-year-old pup had gotten stuck in a rabbit hole in the area she likes to explore outside her Devon, England home.
The problem: Hundreds of rabbit holes surround their home. They called down the holes for hours, even employing underground cameras. Their search lasted through the night, and a group of tracking dogs couldn’t even find Flossie after hours of looking.
Remarkably, Poppy says about five hours later a neighbor heard a “tiny bark” coming from underneath a bush. The search dogs came back, and this time they found Flossie.
In the video, a green-shirted man, Tom Leary, leans down into the hole with both arms outstretched. Finally, we see Flossie’s small head deep in the hole as Leary chisels away at the hole’s wall. After that, he’s able to finally extract her from her underground prison.
She’d lost weight but was otherwise unharmed after four days missing and so many hours in the dirt and mud. The video chronicling her rescue has earned more than 3.6 million views.
“We’re just glad to have her by our sides again and, yeah, give her cuddles,” Vernon told the BBC.
In another TIkTok, Vernon says she thinks Flossie found a hole and descended into it and proceeded to dig her own path underground, blocking her way out.
“She just fully, you know, buried herself alive,” she said.
With that in mind, Vernon said it’s “amazing” they found her—and they’ll make sure to keep track of her closely when she goes outside from now on.