Severe breathing difficulties

Dog in mountain distress after being bitten by an adder

The animal was brought down from the mountain by stretcher.(Bild: Bergrettung St. Johann)

A dog was bitten by an adder near the Herzogalm in St. Johann in Salzburg at the weekend. The mountain rescue team had to be called out because the animal was having difficulty breathing.

The dog had been bitten on the nose and was experiencing increasingly severe breathing difficulties, explains Martin Stifter, head of the local rescue team. The owner had therefore alerted the emergency services and in the meantime placed the animal in the shade and cooled it with a wet T-shirt.

Steep hiking trail
The St. Johann mountain rescuers climbed around 320 meters in altitude from the Herzogalm to the scene. "There, the dog was carefully placed in a stretcher and taken down the steep hiking trail into the valley. We picked up the dog in an emergency vehicle and transported it on to the climbing garden in St. Veit," says Stifter. From there we went to the vet.

The animal was taken down the mountain on a stretcher.(Bild: Bergrettung St. Johann)