When the World Trade Center North and South Towers fell on September 11th, over 10,000 emergency rescue workers rushed to help survivors and help recover the bodies of those lost to the attack. Of the 10,000 rescue workers, there were over 300 teams of search and rescue dogs and handlers. These teams came in from all over the country; some were trained for urban rescue, while more than half were trained for more wilderness rescue missions. Regardless, they still rushed in to help. With the buildings still burning and debris still falling, these rescue teams went to work, risking the lives of the canines and the handlers to try to save and recover as many people as possible.
For more than two weeks after the attacks, these rescue dogs continued their search, working 12-hour days for an average of 10 days straight. Many of these dogs suffered cuts, scrapes, heat exhaustion, and burns during their search. Unfortunately, even with their tiresome search, only 20 survivors were pulled from the debris, with the last survivor being pulled from the rubble 27 hours after the collapse, found by Trackr, a retired police dog from Canada.
With most of the rescue dogs and their handlers being trained to rescue live survivors, many of the dogs quickly started showing signs of depression after only finding dead body after dead body. Several handlers begin to stage “mock find” rescues for the dogs to lift their spirits. The hundreds of rescues dogs also did a job that they weren’t even trained to do -- lift the spirits of the other rescue workers. The search scene was a living hell, only finding dead bodies and working long days, morale was being crushed. However, with the never-ending drive and eagerness from the dogs, they were a ray of sunshine that kept morale alive.
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