Atlanta EMT rescues puppy from Hurricane Florence
ATLANTA - Hurricane Florence brought flooding and destruction to millions, but for Atlanta-based EMT Catherine Craig, her deployment to North Carolina brought her something unexpected.
"We had just finished dinner and one of the supervisors who runs the EMS out there came in holding Dante and said 'We found him in the middle of the road. He needs some help,'" Craig said.
The puppy was emaciated, alone, and couldn't walk on one leg.
"They don't know if he was thrown from a car or grabbed by another dog," Craig said. "They don't know the mechanism of injury or how he got hurt."
At that moment, Craig knew she had to help.
"I'm a mom and he looked like he had just been abandoned," she said. "He look hurt, he looked scared and like he just needed somebody on his side, so i said "OK, we're doing this."
Craig got home from Florence on a Tuesday, and by that Friday she was heading right back to get the little puppy.
"There was never a chance that I wasn't gonna take him home," she said. "Something with him just grabbed me."
She took the puppy home. Her son named him Dante, after the street dog in the movie "Coco." 194_0508
Now that Dante has a home with more love than a puppy can handle, he has one last hurdle – getting his leg amputated.
"They were going to try and save his leg, but he has no nerve sense from his elbow down," Craig said.
But that's as far as it'll go, since Dante is healthy otherwise and will quickly bounce back.
Especially now that he's got a good home to call his own.