You won’t believe how this German Shepherd survived after falling 50 feet into a hole!

Indy was having difficulty walking, due to a ruptured disc in one of his vertebrae causing compression of his spinal cord.

Tuesday’s surgery for Indy, a 9-year-old German Shepherd recently rescued from a 50-foot hole in Bonita, marked the beginning of his recovery at Veterinary Specialty Hospital in Sorrento Valley. It has been a long four weeks for him.

“After all his swelling and infection went down, they did another MRI and they found a bad disc, so they had to go in and fuse two vertebrates together,” said Indy’s owner, Mark Pugh.

The vertebra of his spine was host to a damaged disc, making it difficult for him to move, a direct effect of the compression caused by it on his spinal cord.

“He had nervous function, you could pinch his legs, he’d move them, he’d move his tail, but he couldn’t get up on his back legs because of the pressure of the injury,” said Pugh.

Firefighters from Chula Vista successfully saved a retired police canine who had fallen into a deep hole on February 1, following three hours of work.

“Oh, it was terrible, but in a lot of ways, he rescued me from falling in that hole and if you think about it, him falling in that hole saved that family’s life, those kids there, they had no idea that hole was there,” said Pugh.

Vincent Carillo, the owner of the property, believes that what was a hole before he acquired it may have been an abandoned well. To cover it up, he applied plywood and cement.

Before Indy could receive treatment for his back injury, he needed to conquer numerous episodes of bacterial infection.

“He had a giant gash in his back about 18 inches long from either a rock or a jagged edge on the way down and it got all kinds of nasty stuff inside of it, so they had to really take a long, long time to slowly get that out of him and get him healed up,” said Pugh. “But he’s hung in there, he’s strong, he’s a very strong German Shepherd.”

Mark, who is currently focused on Indy’s recuperation, expresses optimism about her ability to walk again through physical therapy. Although the vet bills have been building up, he is not worried about it at the moment.

“It’s day-by-day still,” said Pugh. “Before he’s back to normal where he was, a happy-go-lucky, running through the field, German Shepherd, it could be another couple months.”