A spot of furry black and white appears among the jagged rocks of New Zealand\u2019s alpine backcountry. It is Molly the border collie, sitting near the foot of a waterfall where she had been separated from her owner one week earlier.<\/p>\n
Molly was rescued on Tuesday after an avalanche of donations from the public funded a volunteer team made up of former helicopter pilots and crew to mount a search in the wilderness.<\/p>\n
Molly had been missing since 24 March, when her owner, Jessica Johnston, tumbled down a 55-metre drop, while on a hike. Johnston was seriously injured and rescued by helicopter, but her dog was nowhere to be seen.<\/p>\n
The chances of finding the border collie were slim given the remote location of the accident on the Campbell Range in the Arahura Valley, in the West Coast region of New Zealand\u2019s South Island. But Lillian Newton, of Precision Helicopters, said she had \u201ca gut feeling\u201d that Molly was still alive.<\/p>\n
The small family business wanted to help, Newton said, but did not have the budget to fund a private search, with helicopters costing about $50 a minute to run. While search and rescue efforts are regularly commissioned for humans in the area, there is no official funding to rescue animals lost in the New Zealand wilderness.<\/p>\n
Molly in the rescue helicopter Photograph: Precision Helicopters<\/p>\n
\u201cWe rang Jess and made sure she was okay for us to put it to the public,\u201d Newton said. \u201cThe goal was to get $2,400 and some volunteers that were experienced to come along.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within eight hours, they had raised $11,500 from \u201ccomplete strangers across New Zealand\u201d and were able to close donations. Then, a plan was crafted.<\/p>\n
Newton described the southern alps, where Molly went missing, as \u201cextremely remote, rough, bushy and wet.\u201d But they had a team of well-trained professionals ready to pivot their human search-and-rescue skills to a canine mission.<\/p>\n
A volunteer named Georgia flew in from Christchurch with thermal imaging gear. Wayne, a helicopter crewman by trade, also volunteered, bringing along his Jack Russell, Bingo, for emotional support in case Molly was frightened. Newton\u2019s father, Matt, a former rescue helicopter pilot, flew the mission.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey went directly to the spot where the owner, Jessica, had fallen. And much to our surprise, Molly was there,\u201d Lillian Newton said.<\/p>\n
The rescue team theorised that Molly may not have fallen down the waterfall with Johnston, but had spent the week slowly heading towards the last spot she had been.<\/p>\n
It was a \u201cchallenging little spot,\u201d Lillian Newton said. Molly was stranded at the foot of the waterfall, surrounded by sharp, mossy rocks and spraying mist.<\/p>\n
Matt Newton hovered the helicopter low while Wayne climbed out. After offering Molly a bit of sausage, he picked up the dog up and carried it to the helicopter. Video of the rescue shows Molly being carried under Wayne\u2019s arm, with Bingo tucked under the other.<\/p>\n
None of the rescue team knew Johnston or Molly before the mission, but when the crew delivered the message that the dog had been found, the feeling was one of overwhelming joy.<\/p>\n
\u201cSomeone told me that I would be \u2018lotto lucky\u2019 to find her, so for it all to pay off is just amazing,\u201d Lillian Newton said.<\/p>\n
She said that while Johnston was lucky that the water broke her fall, she suffered a split elbow, was bruised from head to toe, and had been dealing with the heartbreak of not knowing Molly\u2019s fate.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d say she\u2019ll heal up a lot better now,\u201d Newton said.<\/p>\n
In a Facebook post Johnston said it had been \u201ca bloody rough week, but with both of us back home I can add this adventure to the list. Still a great trip before our lives got turned upside down.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A spot of furry black and white appears among the jagged rocks of New Zealand\u2019s alpine backcountry. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-577969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}