COOS BAY - It was the one place they hadn't looked for Sophie. But it hardly seemed a possibility until Barbara and Ted Scheirman peered over the lip of the cliff to spot the golden red coat of their dog nearly 100 feet beneath them.

“There was Sophie, sitting at the bottom of the cliff and she was alive. It was amazing,” Ted Scheirman said, recalling how he and his wife discovered the 4-year-old golden retriever after her fall near the cliffs of Cape Arago on Jan. 2.

The couple had decided to take a walk through the state park and had released their dog from her leash shortly before she fell.

Surrounded by rocks, tide pools and ropes of seaweed, the golden retriever stared up at her owners from the bottom of the rock face, where she awaited rescue without a whine or bark of protest.

“She never whimpered or cried out or anything,” Barbara Scheirman said.

Despite having suffered a recent heart attack, Ted Scheirman attempted to save the dog himself.

“One of the first things (my wife) told me before I went down the cliff was, ‘You've just had a brush with death. Don't tempt fate again,'” Ted Scheirman said.

He climbed half way down the precipice before realizing that professional assistance was needed to rescue Sophie - and quickly. They were concerned she would be swept out to sea. He called to Sophie, but she would not move because she was hurt or pinned.

“Ted never would have been able to get down and get back up again,” his wife added, nearly interrupting her husband as she tried to describe the moment.

While her husband kept eye contact with the dog, Barbara Scheirman called 911 on her cell phone and calmly told the emergency dispatcher that her dog had just fallen from a cliff.

“I felt pretty numb,” she said, explaining that her training as a registered nurse helped her deal with the situation.

Soon after, she raced to meet members of the Charleston Rural Fire Protection District who put together a plan to rescue the family pet. The firefighters had taken a rappelling course only a few months before at the Barview Fire Station and Southwestern Oregon Community College's Fire Training Facility. Saving the dog was their first chance to test their skills.

“I didn't know they would come to rescue a dog, but they did,” Barbara Scheirman said.

While the entire crew at the scene helped to create a haul system that brought Sophie and her rescuer to the top, it was volunteer and student fireman Kyle de Ronden-Pos, 20, who agreed to rappel down to the rock bottom. Just before lowering the young firefighter, Chief Mick Sneddon and some of the other men worried that Sophie might be vicious, but that was hardly the case.

“When I finally got to Sophie, she just kind of wagged her tail and looked at me,” said de Ronden-Pos, who created a harness to hoist the 100-pound dog, which he cradled in his arms, up to the cliff's top. The trip took nearly 20 minutes. Firefighters hauled Sophie and de Ronden-Pos, who together weighed 265 pounds, up the cliff in 3-foot increments. Sneddon said they used a 3-1 system: For every 9 feet of rope that is pulled, the person at the bottom rises 3 feet. He said while his men tugged on the rope from above, de Ronden-Pos walked up the sheer rock face just like “Batman and Robin.”

When de Ronden-Pos crested the lip of the cliff, another firefighter scooped Sophie out of his tired arms and handed her to the Scheirmans, who then drove her to a veterinarian.

“It was a very awesome event for all the training we have done and prepared for. I've never saved a dog before. That's another one on my list,” de Ronden-Pos said.

He said rescuing Sophie was a special experience, because his own dog was run over a few weeks before.

“When I lost my dog, I couldn't do anything about it. I think the best part of the whole thing was to see Sophie back with her owners,” he said, recalling the relieved faces of Ted and Barbara Scheirman when they saw their golden girl.

A little more than two weeks after the incident, Sophie is resting at home, where she is recuperating from surgery for a fractured femur and dislocated hip. Barbara Scheirman said that at the time, she thought she would never again see the friendly, quiet dog playing with the many chickens and cats at her Coos Bay home.

“Charleston Fire Department is our hero and Sophie's hero, too,” she said, adding although half of Sophie's hindquarters have been shaved and she must walk with the help of a harness held by her or her husband, the dog is chipper and longed to play in the recent snow. As she spoke, her husband fit the harness around the dog's waist.

While they do plan to take Sophie on walks through the state park after she heals, the Scheirmans said taking her off the leash is a mistake they won't make twice. They added that they hope others will view their story as a cautionary tale.

“We see the error of our ways,” Barbara Scheirman said. “We thought we were OK but it turns out we weren't protecting her like we should have.”