When rescuer Aleksandar Naumovic met Tora, a dog that ended up with the Mountain Rescue Service of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska (RS) entity because the fire department “didn’t know what to do with her,” he did not have high hopes for her. However, Tora would go on to become a hero, saving the life of an 11-year old girl who was trapped under rubble in Turkey following the recent devastating earthquake.
Tora stood tall at an event organised by RS authorities on Tuesday to honour the 30 heroes who were sent to Turkey.
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Naumovic is one of those heroes, along with Tora. Together they spent 10 days in Kahramanmaraş, an earthquake-ravaged city in the south of Turkey. Tora scoured an area of more than 950 collapsed buildings, searching for survivors along with hundreds of other search dogs on the ground.
Thanks to her, 11-year-old Irmak was saved after being trapped under rubble for six days. The girl was found in the basement of the building where she used to live on the second floor. Irmak was the only survivor in her family.
Naumovic said that rescuers did not expect to find survivors at that location due to the condition of the building. He explained that, because of the way the building collapsed, the chances of survival were minimal.
Initially, this assessment seemed correct. Tora first marked a location where rescuers found the bodies of Imrak’s family members.
However, the rescuers also noticed signs of life under the rubble.
“When the dog marked the location, they heard the voice of that child,” Naumovic said.
“Then the excavation began. Tora and I arrived at the scene and started investigating. She showed the approximate location of that little girl and the body of her family,” Naumovic said.
The operation to pull the girl from underneath the rubble lasted for the next four hours.
Naumovic said that Tora surpassed all expectations, explaining that she did not have a good start in life.
Together with her sister, Tora was a gift from the Fire Brigade of Mostar to the Territorial Rescue and Fire Brigade of Banja Luka.
Naumovic said that Tora and her sister ended up with the Mountain Rescue Service because people from the Fire Department “did not know what to do with them”, as they did not have the conditions to keep the two dogs.
“From zero to hero,” Naumovic said with a smile, describing how he worked with Tora for five years.
Naumovic met Tora when she was about six months old and said she was in a very bad condition.
“Their condition when they arrived was miserable, they were hurt, tortured, not to mention hungry, crooked-legged and too old to work,” he said, adding that he first planned to use Tora as a mascot for the Mountain Rescue Service.
However, Naumovic was curious and wanted to see what Tora could do. He started training her when she was one year old, knowing that she was too old to train.
He said he started with basic exercises, and it took him at least six months to just teach her to bark on command.
But Naumovic succeeded. With the help and advice of his colleagues from Croatia’s Mountain Rescue Service, he turned an unwanted dog into a hero who can replace up to 30 people in a search and rescue operation.
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