The Niagara Regional Police Service is praising one of its K-9 members after a police dog was able to track down a missing man who had been stuck in a ravine for several hours.
Authorities said Niagara police responded to a report of a missing person around 7:30 p.m. on Monday in St. Catharines.
Officers attended a residence on Lake Street north of Lakeshore Road, noting that the initial investigation determined that a man in his 70s had left a family residence earlier in the afternoon on foot. Police said the family was concerned for the elderly man’s safety.
K-9 unit member and Const. Tim Wiley, accompanied by his police dog Rudy, conducted a missing person search from the St. Catharines residence and was drawn to a pathway that led down into a ravine towards the water’s edge of Lake Ontario.
“[Const.] Wiley looked down the pathway but did not see anything. As [Const.] Wiley was about to continue to look elsewhere… Rudy indicated that he wanted to go further down the pathway,” a police news release stated.
In trusting Rudy’s nose, Const. Wiley located the man lying at the bottom of the ravine for nearly four hours.
St. Catharine’s Fire Service was called to assist in rescuing the man, as the ravine’s slope was too steep for Const. Wiley and Rudy to safely traverse.
“Having been out in the rain and wind for such a length of time, the man was transported to a local hospital by paramedics from Niagara Emergency Medical Service for further assessment and treatment,” the news release stated.
The man is expected to survive. The Niagara Regional Police Service said Rudy is a four-year-old German Shepard from Canada.
