Malappuram: For three days, a dog and her seven puppies were trapped inside an abandoned well, soaked in slimy water filled with trash in a housing colony at Perinthalmanna. The puppies occasionally let out a whimper. Sneha Maria Thomas, a nurse who resides in the colony as a paying guest, couldn't ignore it. She went around the premises, trying to trace the source of the sound.

Sneha and her friends used to feed the stray puppies in the colony. When she found out that the mother dog and puppies had fallen into the well, 16 feet deep, she rang up her parents in Thiruvananthapuram, who suggested she call the Fire Force. She was redirected to Malappuram Trauma Care, an NGO in Malappuram. Jabbar Jubilee, the unit leader of trauma care, Perinthalmanna, and his team were happy to help.

The well had not been in use for a long time. Wooden planks were placed atop a metal sheet that covered the well. The dogs had slipped through a gap in the sheet. All the planks were removed. Jabbar struggled to catch a breath as he started descending the steps. "The well had been abandoned and was filled with waste. There was no sufficient supply of Oxygen. We worked on ensuring air passage by swaying leaf branches continuously and then slowly got down to the dogs," said Jabbar.

Armed with a net, helmet, and harness belt, Jabbar was wary of the mother dog, who growled at him. She had sensed danger, and the first step was to haul her back to safety. Once that was done, Jabbar netted all the puppies and brought them back. Jabbar and his team had actively taken part in the Wayanad rescue mission. "We released the puppies safely; every life matters, and we are happy that we could rescue them," said Jabbar. The dogs were rescued on Saturday evening.

Sneha, a nursing staff member at Moulana Hospital, Perinthalmanna, said that she felt disturbed by the whimper of puppies. "We come back from work and always feed them. We initially thought that they were stuck somewhere in the rain. The sound was coming from near the well, but it had been closed for a long time, and we thought the puppies were trapped elsewhere. Then we looked into the well using a torch and found the puppies. They are now roaming around our premises," said Sneha.