A Highway 33 dog rescue near Kelowna, British Columbia, ended in reunion after 96 hours when an Australian shepherd named Daisy was found alive inside the truck that had run her owners off the road. Dearah Jordan and her husband Sharron had been struck by a pickup truck on the highway, causing their car to roll. Jordan suffered scrapes and bruising; Daisy simply vanished.
The Crash on Highway 33 and the Search That Followed
According to CBC News, the collision happened on Highway 33 near Kelowna. When the rolling stopped, Jordan’s first instinct was to look for Daisy. First responders persuaded her to go to hospital instead. The injuries turned out to be minor, and she was discharged quickly to resume the search.
The driver of the pickup was hospitalised with serious injuries. His truck came to rest in the brush at the roadside, and it would stay there for days, largely overlooked.
Meanwhile, a member of Central Okanagan Search and Rescue (COSAR), Forrest Kellerman, was responding to a separate call when he heard about the crash from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Back home, he found a notice that an Australian shepherd was missing from the scene. He and his wife Tracey decided to go and find her.
Three Days of Searching, and the Moment Tracey Looked in the Right Place
After COSAR offered its services, Forrest spent three days searching for Daisy, according to the Vancouver Island Free Daily. On the second day out, the Kellermans met Dearah and Sharron at the crash site. The couple had barely slept since the collision. By that point, word had spread through the wider community, and the response was substantial.
People arrived with food, satellite communications equipment and a thermal imaging drone. Volunteers came to help search the surrounding land. ‘People were bringing us food, satellite links, everything imaginable, like volunteers were coming out of the woodworks, just complete strangers. It was so emotional,’ Jordan told CBC News.
None of it, as thorough as it was, found Daisy. The dog had not wandered into the surrounding terrain at all.
On the fourth day, Tracey Kellerman returned to the crash site. She approached the pickup truck still lying in the brush and saw movement through the window: a small face with big eyes. Daisy was sitting on the passenger seat of the truck that had caused the whole ordeal. She had, it appears, sheltered there throughout.
Tracey did not rush. She spoke calmly to the dog while alerting Forrest to go and bring Jordan to the scene. When Jordan arrived, Daisy whimpered intensely at the sight of her. Jordan could not hold back her emotions. Like Jordan herself, Daisy came through the crash without serious harm.
What the Highway 33 Dog Rescue Showed About Community Response
The search was not without its difficulties. Four days is a long time to go without sleep or answers, and the terrain around a rural British Columbia highway is not forgiving. The thermal drone and satellite equipment the community supplied were not what ultimately located Daisy: that came down to Tracey Kellerman deciding, on day four, to check the most obvious place one more time.
The Highway 33 dog rescue near Kelowna drew on every kind of resource a community could offer, from professional search skills to a hot meal on a cold hillside. The outcome, a dog found unharmed four days after a serious crash, was the result of all of it combined. Jordan and Daisy went home together, the search finally over.
