Hiking Doctors Rescue Golden Retriever Who Was Stranded on Snowy Mountain for 2 Weeks

Austin Cannon
·2 min read
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A pair of doctors who were taking a break from saving lives amid the COVID-19 pandemic this weekend managed to find and rescue a shivering golden retriever who'd been missing in some snowy Irish mountains for two weeks.

According to RTE, the two doctors, Jean Francois Bonnet and Ciara Nolan, were hiking Lugnaquilla, a mountain in the Wicklow range, on Saturday, far away from their jobs on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic. Near the summit, they found the dog, 8-year-old Neesha, who'd fled from a family walk nearby two weeks prior.

"We were almost at the top when my girlfriend Ciara screamed 'there is a dog! There is a dog!' Bonnet told East Coast FM. "That poor thing was curled up against the rock. She was petrified, freezing cold. She didn't have enough energy to bark or stand.

The retriever was so cold and weak that she could barely bark. Bonnet and Nolan put some clothes on her to stave off any remaining cold and then ended up carrying her back down the mountain—some 10 kilometers.

The tear-jerking video of the rescue has already gained more than 278,000 likes on TikTok.

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Bonnet and Nolan took Neesha to their home, where they fed her and warmed her up even more, RTE reported. Then they got ahold of a local animal rescue organization, who managed to find Neesha's owners: the Goetelen family.

While on their walk two weeks ago, Neesha and another dog, Harley, took off after a deer, Irena Goetelen told RTE. Harley returned the next day, but Neesha did not. It's unclear—and, frankly, amazing—how she managed to survive in snowy wilderness for two weeks.

"I just pictured her shivering in the cold, it was awful," teenage daughter Shannah Goetelen told RTE.

Soon after the snowy rescue, Neesha was back home with her grateful family—and doing well.

"We were so, so relieved and happy," Irena Goetelen said, per IrishCentral. "We have no words to thank them both for what they did to bring her back home. They are just absolutely amazing and unbelievable. We just can't thank them enough."