Dog Survives 4 Weeks in a Pit

A family who left their dog for dead after a desert hiking accident four weeks ago has been reunited with the pet after a Riverside County hiker and his brother heard it barking and pulled it from a pit 30 feet deep.

Stephen Schwartz, 17, was hiking with his brother, father and two cousins on April 18 near the ghost town of Panamint City on the western edge of Death Valley National Park when their 10-year-old dog, Shadow, fell into the pit.

The Schwartzes heard the dog whimpering and tried to use an aluminum ladder from a nearby ranger station to reach it. But the ladder fell out of reach, and eventually Shadow stopped responding to their calls.

Thinking the dog was dead, the Schwartzes placed an improvised wooden cross over the pit, said a prayer and returned home to Trona, a town in San Bernardino County. But Shadow was very much alive, surviving on water in the hole.

On Sunday, Scott Mertz, 36, of Temecula and his brother, Darren, 34, of Ridgecrest, were searching for the source of a spring near Panamint City.

They stumbled on a deep, 4-foot-wide pit with a cross over it.

Stopping to rest, the brothers tossed rocks into the pit and dared each other to climb inside. Then they heard barking.

“We looked at each other and my brother said, ‘Is that coming from the hole?’ ” Scott Mertz said. “We were just horrified that there was a dog down there.”

Darren Mertz added, “We weren’t going to leave without the dog.”

Using an old hose from a nearby water storage tank, Darren lowered his brother into the hole until he could reach the ladder and climb down to the dog. Scott Mertz managed to grab a frightened and skinny Shadow, and his brother hauled them up.

The Mertz brothers called the number on Shadow’s tags.

“This tops the list. I never felt so happy before,” Stephen Schwartz said Tuesday.

The cocker spaniel-beagle mix appeared to be in good health despite losing 5 pounds, he said.