Dog survives 5 days lost after accident in N.L.
CONCEPTION BAY SOUTH, N.L. — When the Pardy family went to pick up their Shih Tzu puppy a few years ago, he had already been given the name Lucky because he had to be resuscitated immediately after birth.
The family changed his name to Obi, after the Star Wars character, Obi Wan Kenobi.
Last Monday, the three-yearold dog used up more of his good luck, and maybe even summoned some of the mysterious force Jedi masters can tap into, to keep himself alive for five days lost in the western Newfoundland wilderness.
Obi was travelling by car with his owners, Tanya Pardy and her sons, Joshua and Jonathan, back home to Conception Bay South from a visit with Pardy’s parents in Hampden.
It might have been a bright sunny day, but the Pardys and Obi soon found themselves in a sudden whiteout as they drove through the notorious Birchy Narrows area of the TransCanada Highway.
Before they knew it, they had collided with a transport truck. Shortly thereafter, another car hit them from behind.
Worried about what might happen if they remained in the vehicle, they all got out. Moments after their hasty exit, another transport truck hit the car that had hit the Pardys from behind.
Pardy and Jonathan, 9, had jumped up onto the snowbank on one side of the accident scene when they saw the big rig approaching, while 12-year-old Joshua and Obi had scattered to the opposite side of the road.
Joshua eventually made his way back to his mom and brother, but Obi was nowhere to be found.
All three had suffered whiplash in the accident and one of the boys had significant seat belt bruises and cuts. Pardy broke three bones in her foot and injured her knee, but still got her sons to a safe place in a Good Samaritan’s warm vehicle before starting a frantic search for Obi. There was no sign of him. Soon, another car crashed into what would become a 15-vehicle pileup.
“I truly believe he would have come to me if he had heard me,” Pardy said of her search in the freezing temperatures and blinding snow squalls. “I feared the worst, that Obi was hit by a vehicle or had been buried in the snowbank.”
It was with deep anxiety the trio left the scene for Deer Lake, and eventually flew home without their beloved pet.
A police officer, who told Pardy he had been the first and last officer at the scene, later told her that he had not seen a dog. He advised her to make a post on social media because maybe Obi was OK and out there somewhere.
She did so with the heaviest of hearts.
“To be honest, when I made that post on Facebook, I was just hoping to get his body back, so we could have some closure,” said Pardy.
Despite an outpouring of support online, the days went on with no word of Obi from anyone. Some of those days featured the coldest nights of this winter, with wind chills in the -35 C range.
On Saturday afternoon, the Pardys got word that travellers who knew Obi had been missing had sighted him in the Birchy Narrows area but had been unable to lure the cold and scared dog into their vehicle.
Pardy’s husband, Dean, managed to snag the last seat on a flight and was soon on his way to search for Obi.
Tanya’s father, Melvin Pittman, left from Hampden to go search the area before Dean landed and joined him, but saw no sign of the dog.
The two searched until after dark Saturday evening. They were about to give up for the day at 8:30 p.m. when Dean heard a faint bark in the distance.
He homed in on the sound and, with the help of a flashlight, eventually found Obi stuck in the snow trying to get back to the snowmobile track Dean was on.
Obi was cold and weak and likely would not have survived another freezing night in the outdoors, especially stuck in the snow like he was.
He immediately wolfed down a feed of turkey Dean had just bought at a nearby restaurant.
A veterinarian checked Obi and said he had not suffered frostbite and should be fine.
Pardy said it’s nothing short of miraculous how everything leading up to the rescue worked in Obi’s favour, even if it took five days for it to happen. She said the woman who knew he was missing passed by him at just the right time, and the fact the single seat on the airplane was available for her husband was just as serendipitous.
“So many things had to go right for us to even find him,” she said.