Scott Grissom brings his 30-pound dog Carl with him everywhere: road trips, fishing expeditions, hiking trails.
“This dog has just been my buddy,” Grissom said of Carl.
Grissom brought Carl home as a puppy while he was in the depths of grief. Grissom’s wife was killed in a robbery at their home in Memphis in 2017.
For roughly 17 harrowing hours last week, Grissom wondered whether he was going to lose Carl, too.
On Aug. 13, Grissom and Carl went to a friend’s farm 45 minutes west of Nashville, a place they have visited together dozens of times.
“It’s dog heaven around there,” the friend, Brennan Breckenridge, said of his farm in Charlotte, Tennessee.
Carl and other dogs usually go off leash there to explore the farm and splash in the creek. Carl, 5, is a Lagotto Romagnolo, an Italian breed known for truffle hunting.
A group of friends met Grissom at the farm, and the men and their dogs went swimming, then drove to a lookout point above a cliff on a neighboring farm a little before 6 p.m.
After a few minutes of taking in the late-afternoon view, the group went to leave and called for their dogs. Carl didn’t come.
“Then we heard him barking down the side of the cliff. And this is a 200-foot drop, straight wall going down,” said Grissom, 65.
Grissom and his friends spent hours searching for the dog, trying to follow the sound of his bark. They didn’t know whether he had slipped and fallen, landing on the riverbank below or if he was stuck somewhere along the cliff face. The echoes of his barking made it hard to locate him.
The men called the neighbor and property owner — and his son, who had a drone.
“I got that call and I immediately drove out there and got my drone and started looking for the dog,” said Bert Echols, 23.
Echols and his dad looked for the dog until the early morning hours, around 3 a.m.
“I’m a big dog person and I was just so determined to find this dog. I almost didn’t sleep the whole night,” Echols said. “I know that dog was so special to Scott.”
Finally in the first light of the morning, Echols spotted Carl with his drone. Carl was perched on a tiny ledge not much bigger than his body about 100 feet down from the lookout point, just outside a small cave where he likely had taken refuge overnight.
They called a nonemergency county number for help, and worried no one would come.
“We were out in the middle of nowhere,” Grissom said. “Who’s going to come out and take the time to get a dog?”
Then first responders showed up from four local fire departments, ready with rappelling equipment.
“This is the cool part of the job,” said Ben Mayberry, a firefighter with the Dickson County Fire Department who used ropes to lower himself down the side of the cliff to reach Carl.
He worked with a team managing the ropes at the top of the cliff, and another rescuer, Nathan Ramos, who joined him on the side of the cliff.
When they reached Carl, he seemed exhausted and anxious but wagged his tail.
The two men guided Carl into a duffel bag that a bystander had given them so they could hoist him back up the cliff. Carl popped his head out of the bag as they slowly eased him back up.
At the top, he was reunited with Grissom, who said he was too nervous to even watch the rescue, which took about 20 minutes and was completed around 11 a.m.
“I couldn’t watch. I was … crying out to God to save this dog,” Grissom said.
Carl was thirsty and seemed shaken, but did not appear hurt. Still, Grissom brought the dog to an emergency clinic where a vet confirmed that Carl had only minor injuries and prescribed an anti-inflammatory drug similar to ibuprofen. After a couple days of stiffness, Carl seemed back to normal, Grissom said.
“He’s running around and chasing balls like nothing ever happened,” Grissom said.
Grissom credits the teamwork of the first responders, as well as Echols for helping to locate Carl. Echols credits his teenage years spent playing video games.
“They say Xbox is not very good for you, but it created drone skills for me that saved Carl’s life,” Echols said.
Breckenridge said he hopes Grissom still visits and brings back his dog.
“I think Carl is going to be on a leash next time,” Breckenridge said.
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