When Deputy Brian Bowling, a former U.S. Army Flight Medic in Afghanistan, found a __dog lying in the street, bleeding from a wound to the head, he immediately sprung into action.
“Kind of had a little flashback to that. Cause we had seen military, working dogs over there that were blown up by IED’s and shot and that’s kind of what went through my head. I thought I had to do anything I could to save its life,” said Bowling.
He stopped his patrol vehicle and jumped out, leaving his door open as he approached the injured dog. The dog, Ginger, must have known he was there to help and, miraculously, got up and jumped right into the driver’s seat of Bowling’s vehicle.
Bowling rushed Ginger to a nearby animal hospital where he learned she had been shot and would need surgery to survive.
Ginger had apparently burrowed under the fence in her backyard and onto a neighbor’s property. The neighbor reportedly shot her in the head and left her to die. Somehow, Ginger made her way to the street where Deputy Bowling would soon drive by.
Sadly, when Ginger’s owner, who was not home at the time of the incident, learned of her beloved dog’s life threatening injuries and the expensive surgery required to save her, she simply couldn’t afford the procedure.
“It was heart wrenching but I knew I didn’t want her to suffer anymore. I finally said, ok, I don’t have these funds. I have to put the __dog down,” Ginger’s owner Hayley Miller told KPHO. But, Deputy Bowling couldn’t let that happen.
“It didn’t seem right to allow a dog that had survived so much, that had survived a gunshot wound to the head, to just die because its owner just didn’t have the financial means at the moment,” he said. Without hesitation, he paid the $2500 necessary to save Ginger’s life a second time.
Today, Ginger is doing very well and, thanks to one kind, compassionate deputy, she’s got another lease on life.
