The off-duty firefighter could have sworn Sage was dead.
After all, he’d known the aged yellow Labrador retriever and her owners since he moved to Boulder Creek five years ago.
Fact is, he’d joined in the neighborhood-wide search for the lost blind dog more than a week earlier.
So when Dan Estrada and long-time friend Vincent Lopez saw the bedraggled dog sprawled on the banks of the creek below the family house his heart sank.
“I knew at that point it was a body recovery,” said Estrada, a firefighter with the Livermore-Pleasanton Fire Department. “I was going to have to be the bearer of bad news. I was slowly moving forward.”
That’s when Lopez scooted closer to the seemingly lifeless dog and shouted, “She’s alive!”
Estrada rapidly joined his friend. “I made my way to her started hugging and kissing her,” he said. “She’s completely blind and couldn’t find her way out.”
The condition of Sage was a heart-wrenching sight. Lying by the river bank with face resting by the water, her belly covered with urine.
Despite subsisting solely sips of water during a week of near-freezing nights, Sage lifted her head when Estrada’s dogs, Koelsch and Barnabas, romped to the site. She knows them well from frequent walks.
A member of the Community Emergency Response Team, Estrada hoisted Sage over his shoulders, while Lopez called Estrada’s wife Nikki, and photographed their trek up the steep hill to home.
When they reached the top of the hill Sage’s owners, Beth and Russell Cole, greeted them for an unanticipated family reunion.
“I’d pretty much given up,” said Russell of the search for 12-year-old Sage. “Three people had already gone through this area.”
Both Estrada and the Coles believe Sage was fortunate to be found before the coming storm. “I have no doubt in my mind that Sage would not have made it another night and would have drowned when the creek rose,” Estrada said. “The more I think about it, it was a miracle.”
Once rescued, Sage was taken to the vet immediately and pronounced to be only slightly dehydrated.
It remains unclear if Sage will be in attendance at the fund-raiser to benefit the Santa Cruz Animal Shelter from 4 to 6 p.m., Saturday, March 18, at Joe’s Bar in Boulder Creek.
But one thing is sure, Sage fans will be watching. The story has gone viral on national news and social media.
