On July 20, 2012 at 1124 hours station 3 was toned out for a serious accident on Hermanville Road with entrapment. You can check this story under our incidents but this is the rest of the story. You see this accident was the father our our Past Fire Chief Joe Gould and Joe was told about it and responded from the station. Well the crew of the engine and squad did a great job removing Mr. Gould from his vehicle and he was transported to the landing site by the Lexington Park Rescue Squad for air transport to a local trama center. I'm happy to report that Joe's dad is back here in one of our local nursing homes doing re-hab to get him back on his feet and we wish him the best.
Now for the rest of the story. It seems that the Gould family's pet Katy was in the vehicle with her owner and missing at the scene. With the extensive damage to the car we just knew that she was injured badly and probably had crawed away from all the action going on. After making sure that Joe's dad was taken care of and on his way to the hospital members from the engine and squad searched the area to see if they could find the dog. After much searching by this crew who had taken a beating in the 100 degree heat doing the patient removal the fire chief who held the command had everyone wrap it up and return to the station.
This is where I put my nose in it as I wanted to take a look at the accident site and drove on down. I found Joe Gould's son Kyle doing his own search as he knew how important the pet was to his grandmother and grandfather. You see about 13 years ago they had rescued Katy from and abusive home where she had her vocal cords so damaged from being on a leash that she could no longer bark. Well I stopped and talked to Kyle and seeing just what the dog meant to the family I called Chief Downs and asked could we spare some men to look just one more time. It wasn't long before Engine 92 and the Chief showed up with a crew and we spread out for one more look.
Now we just knew from the damage to the vehicle that the dog could not have survived for to long and we all thought we would find her laying in a ditch somewhere. So we did a grid search like you would for a human lost and we walked in a corn field and about a mile down in the woods hoping that we would find something. None of us wanted to think about her being scared and hurt somewhere and not even being able to bark. Let me tell you it was hot and there were more briar bushes than you can imagine but the guys kept it up because they to saw the look in the eyes of the family members and firefighters just don't like to give up. After a couple of hours and everyone beat we didn't find anything. No blood. Nothing. So we headed back to the station knowing we had done our best
Now for the good stuff. A couple living in the Abbery Crest Apartments were walking their dog and saw a dog laying in the weeds at the end of one of the streets. It was Katy and they took her home and cleaned her up fed her and noticed that there was a I.D. chip on the dog so the local vet knew who to get in touch with.
Do you think they were one happy family. Now this was TWO WEEKS after the accident so don't you just ask yourself if she could talk would she have a story to tell.
So that's how this story ended. A happy ending and firefighters don't have to many of those. It just makes me so proud to be a member of Bay District.
Station 3
46900 S. Shangri La Drive
Lexington Park, MD 20653
Station 9
45774 Fire Department Lane
California, MD 20619
