Nate Farrington (best p_2.JPG

Nate Farrington pictured here on a climbing trip to New Hampshire.

(Nate Farrington)

Remy. It took rescuers about seven hours after the doberman fell into a crevice at Clark Reservation State Park.

JAMESVILLE, N.Y. -- Nate Farrington is thin. He's also a good rock climber.

Both points made him an ideal choice to scale down 15 feet into a one-foot-wide crevice to rescue a stranded dog at Clark Reservation State Park in Jamesville.

More than two dozen firefighters spent about five hours trying to rescue Remy, a 1 1/2-year-old female doberman, who slipped and fell into a crevice while on a walk around 6:30 p.m. Monday. They couldn't get the dog out.

That's when Melissa Fadden, an employee at the Veterinary Medical Center of CNY in DeWitt, who was working with the firefighters, texted Farrington.

They have mutual friends and she knew Farrington was an avid rock climber and caver. She also knew he was thin enough he might fit into the narrow rock gap.

Farrington was working on his car at his Syracuse home around 11:15 p.m. when he received the text. The 32-year-old Corcoran High School grad was familiar with the state park. He dropped what he was doing, grabbed his climbing gear and headed to the park.

A park police officer briefed him on the situation and told Farrington the dog was nearly impossible to reach, he said.

"I got the idea that they weren't exactly hopeful," Farrington said.

When he got to the park, Farrington avoided the firetrucks, police cars and news vans. Instead, he got into a snowmobile and headed down the Mildred Faust trail to the crevice. He put on a harness and waterproof gear and prepared the ropes for belaying. He secured a rope anchor around a tree, which Farrington described as a web of ropes connecting from the tree to his harness.

It was raining that night and the crevice was covered in ice.

"It was a pretty miserable situation," Farrington said.

Only the dog's back could be seen and even though crews had bright lights to aid in the rescue, it was tough to see the dog so deep down, he said.

It was safety first for Farrington, until he realized he couldn't reach the dog with the harness and ropes attached, hindering his movement.

So on his third trip into the crevice, he took them all off.

Even though he's thin - the thinnest guy there that night - the rocks were tight against his chest and back, he said. If he slipped, he knew he wouldn't move very far, he said.

Even without the hindrance of the ropes, the rescue proved tricky. Rescue crews tried digging in a different part of the crevice to try to get a better angle, but they hit rock.

Firefighters handed down dog catch poles of varying lengths to Farrington, but he still couldn't get a grasp on the dog.

Farrington wasn't sure if the dog, covered in snow and ice, was still breathing. Ever so often, Remy would let out a whimper.

"It worried me," he said. "[the whimpers] broke me each time."

Farrington took the same angle into the crevice on the first five trips, facing the tree where his harness had been anchored. The gap was so tight, Farrington couldn't turn his head, he said.

After the fifth trip, Farrington mentally regrouped and tried to come up with a new strategy.

On his next trip down, he tried a different direction than he or the firefighters had been taking: sideways and facing away from the tree.

A large rock was blocking his path into the crevice. If that rock hadn't been there, the firefighters would've been able to rescue Remy within 20 minutes, Farrington estimated, and he likely wouldn't have even been called to the park.

"It was definitely an Achilles heel for the whole situation," he said.

But the new angle allowed Farrington to get around the rock and reach the dog. Farrington was able to snare the dog with the catch pole and handed the pole to the firefighters waiting above. They pulled the dog to safety.

It was 1:45 a.m. at that point and the dog, which had been stuck for more than seven hours, wasn't moving much and stopped making noise, Farrington said.

When firefighters started the rescue earlier that evening, Remy fought against the catch pole, Farrington said firefighters told him. By the end, the dog had stopped resisting.

"That's what worried me the most," he said.

Jamesville firefighters loaded Remy into a rescue truck, gave her oxygen and drove the dog to the veterinary hospital, said Kevin Carver, second assistant chief at the Jamesville Fire Department and one of the first on the scene.

As soon as Farrington climbed out of the crevice, he rushed over to the veterinary hospital to see how the dog was doing.

Remy suffered hypothermia, scrapes on her nose and bruises. Keanna Rose, the dog's owner, told syracuse.com on Tuesday that Remy showed signs of neurological damage and had trouble walking. Remy stayed overnight at the veterinary hospital and went home Tuesday.

Nate Farrington pictured here setting up ropes from 40 feet up at SUNY Cortland's rock climbing wall.

Farrington gets plenty of rock climbing experience as student manager of the rock climbing wall at the State University College at Cortland, where he's a senior outdoor recreation major and plans to continue there for his master's degree in the fall.

He's also a member of the Syracuse University Outing Club, which he joined in 2006. Growing up, Farrington would climb buildings and things around his parents' house, "much to their chagrin," but he hadn't been in a cave since he joined the Outing Club, he said. Now he's a guide on ice and rock climbing trips.

For the past six years, Farrington has also served as the coordinator of the Outdoor Adventure Club Coordinator at the Westcott Community Center, an after-school children's program.

Despite his experience, it's the first time Farrington has been involved in an animal rescue.

"This one was unique," he said. "I'm glad I could do something to help."

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