Good Samaritan Saves Life of Dog Found Nearly Hanging from Overpass by Electrical Cord
Mondays are generally regarded as a drag. The beginning of the work week, back to the old grind — it can take a toll on a person to go from relative freedom to being held captive at tasks they may or may not enjoy.
But on one particular Monday, as people prepared themselves for another week of work, the day was starting out much worse for a critter named Max, who was stationed helplessly on the side of a freeway as commuters passed by.
As David Fredman drove to work on Aug. 5 in Independence, Missouri, he spotted the dog in a very precarious position. The poor thing was practically being strangled by a cord that had been tied around its neck.
“The way I found him, I just couldn’t believe somebody would do that to an animal at all,” Fredman said, according to WNCN. “I saw what looked like a dog that was being hung over the side of some sort of power box.
“The cord was definitely strangling him. His feet were touching the ground, but they were barely touching the ground. He was trying to whip his head left and right but could barely move it.”
After calling 911, Fredman grabbed a knife, got out of his car and approached the dog, hurrying to cut it free. Even after the cord was removed, the dog struggled to breathe.
“As soon as I cut him down, he couldn’t breathe. He was trying to breathe.
“I tried to get him to walk,” Fredman continued. “He couldn’t walk.”
While it’s perhaps possible that the dog tangled himself up in the electrical cord, it seems very unlikely that a single wire would wrap so tightly around the dog’s neck. The good Samaritan was sickened by the thought that a human could have done this, but he says it looks like the situation could easily have been man-made.
“From the way it looks, somebody could have definitely been on purpose,” he said. “They could have strung him up like that. It was really sad.”
Thankfully, Fredman had noticed in time and promptly took the dog to a shelter.
“I took him to a no kill shelter cause I had to go work and they found a chip in him and then contacted his owners which lost him couple hours prior that morning,” he wrote in reply to a comment on his uncle’s post. “Everything worked out for old Max. He was 16 years old.”
Meanwhile, Max’s owner had been very worried about his missing pet. He lived about a mile from where Max was tied up, and was happy to get a call from the shelter saying that Max had been found.
“Two hours later there was a phone call came in asking if I was missing my dog,” Dee Vaughn, the dog’s owner, said.
But Vaughn was perplexed as to how Max could’ve wandered that far, saying there was no way his dog could’ve gotten there by himself, adding credibility to the theory that someone had tied up the elderly dog on purpose.
“I don’t know if he fell off or somebody tried to hang him,” Vaughn admitted. “The cameras will show.”
Vaughn was very thankful for Fredman’s help and invited him over to personally thank him for stepping in and saving Max’s life.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
