09/21/2026
On the evening of October 12, 2006, Eve and Norman Fertig went out to feed the animals, the same as every evening. Both were 81.
They ran the Enchanted Forest Wildlife Sanctuary in Alden, New York, east of Buffalo, taking in injured birds and hawks. It had been a mild, clear autumn day, so neither of them put on a coat or gloves.
Buffalo was about to be hit by one of the worst storms in its history. Heavy wet snow fell onto trees that still had all their leaves, and the weight brought them down across the whole region.
By the time the couple tried to walk back to the house, a quarter of a mile away, trees were coming down around them. One fell across the path behind the buildings and blocked the way home.
They wedged themselves into a narrow alley between the animal hospital and the aviary, which at least kept the falling timber off them, and held on to each other.
They tried for hours to clear enough branches to climb over. They couldn't.
"I wasn't prepared for this," Eve said. "I thought, we're trapped, we're absolutely trapped."
By 9:30 p.m., in the cold and without proper clothing, she turned to her husband of 62 years and told him she didn't think they were going to survive the night.
Shana was out there with them. She was a 7-year-old German shepherd and timberwolf mix, 160 pounds, and the Fertigs had taken her from a breeder as a sick 2-week-old puppy. She followed Eve everywhere.
She started digging.
For roughly 2 hours she worked with her paws and her teeth, under the fallen trees and through the snow, barking as she went.
What she made was a tunnel about 20 feet long and a foot wide, running from where the couple were trapped back toward the house.
Then she came back for them.
She barked at them. When they hesitated, she took hold of the sleeve of Eve's jacket and pulled her onto her back and shoulders. Eve weighed 86 pounds and later said the dog's back was as wide as her kitchen shelf. Norman took hold of his wife's legs.
Shana pulled the two of them through the tunnel, under the trees, through a gap in the fence, and to the front door of the house. That part took another 2 hours. They got inside sometime around 1:30 in the morning, having been outside for about 6 hours.
They fell through the door and couldn't get up. There was no power and no heat. Shana lay down on top of both of them and stayed there.
That's how the fire crews found them the next morning.
The firefighters kept going back out to look at the tunnel. Eve said they told her they had never seen anything like it.
In November, Shana was given the Citizens for Humane Animal Treatment's Hero's Award, which had only ever gone to people before. The plaque hangs in the Fertigs' living room.
"That dog literally saved their lives," said the head of the organization that gave it. "If she hadn't, they wouldn't be here today to talk about it."
