Bengaluru building collapse: A woof from Brady ended 7-hour search

BENGALURU: A woof from Brady ended a seven-hour-long rescue and search operation by the NDRF, SDRF, Fire and Emergency and Civil Defence personnel at Ejipura, the site of a building collapse that killed seven, on Monday.

Two-year-old Brady, a Labrador, is a specially-trained dog to sniff out the living and dead people from the debris.

His handler, NDRF official Venkatesh, told Deccan Chronicle that Brady has been specially trained in Chennai to assist NDRF officials to trace people trapped under the debris. Venkatesh said that Brady can detect a live person trapped under the debris from a distance of 15-20 feet through the victim’s breath and heartbeats.

“First thing he does is to find trapped victims who are alive. Later he looks for the dead. His response is different in both cases. If he finds a victim alive, he does not bark but starts digging the debris. That is an indication that someone is alive. He knows that if he barks, victims may panic. He barks only if someone is dead,” he said.

Brady was trained for one-and-a-half years and has assisted the NDRF in rescuing five people trapped under the rubble last year in Hyderabad, Venkatesh said. “It’s because of Brady that we could rescue those five, who were still alive but could not be seen by rescue workers,” he said.