All throughout the summer, we kept bringing up the problem of canine heat deaths in cars. And for a good reason – every summer sees the needless deaths of thousands of dogs due to such negligence. It turns out, however, that even trained professionals tend to make this mistakes. This is evident from the recent story of how a police officer leaves his dog to die in his car.
The South Carolina officer David Hurt was attending a training at a high school. He parked his car in the shade of the high school parking lot. He even cracked a window open and left the AC running. However, he did make the fatal mistake of turning the car’s heat alarm off.
The training started at 7:30 am in the morning and went on until 3:30 pm. Hurt had even asked another police officer to check on the dog around midday and the officer had reported that the dog was fine. None of them considered that the temperatures were just starting to rise at that point.
Turbo, the two-year-old golden retriever, didn’t die in the car. When Hurt got back from the training, Turbo was alive, but was panting and frothing at the month. As a trained officer, Hurt recognized the signs of overheating so he called for help. However, Turbo had already developed organ failure and died two days later.
Columbia Police Chief Skip Holbrook announced the disciplinary actions that were being taken against Officer hurt.
The policeman won’t face any criminal charges, however, he has been stripped of his position as a police dog handler. He has also been suspended from the bomb unit for six months. Finally, he has been suspended from the force without pay for five days.
“I guess the simplest way for me to start is to acknowledge that we made some mistakes,” Holbrook said in front of the news reporters.
According to Holbrook, Hurt had not given “any logical reason for why he deactivated the heat alarm.”
When faced with the news of how even a police officer leaves his dog to die in his car, we can’t help but feel discouraged. Yet, this is all the more reason to keep reminding people to be careful with their canine pals during the summer. Even with the AC on and a cracked window, your dog will always be in grave danger in the summer months. Never deactivate your heat alarm.
