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My Miracle Dog
By Allison Egan

Hello, I have a story to share with your show. Last Friday, April 26, 2002, I received a phone call at work from my fiancé saying he had to rush home that one of our dogs was hurt badly. We had been having my fiancée's cousin visit us from Florida for the past few weeks, he had let the dog out for a short while, and she disappeared -- which was strange for her because she always stayed in the yard. He had called out for her, but there was no sign of her. Then about 20 minutes later, she showed up on the front porch. I also went home to see what had happened. When I got to my house, my fiancé was was on the porch yelling to me to call our vet because our dog was missing her entire front right leg. I called them and we immediately rushed "Jersey" (our dog) to the vet. The doctor had asked me what happened and we did not know how she had lost her leg yet. The doctor said he would operate on her and try to help her as much as possible and that he would call me later that evening. We left Jersey at the doctor's office hoping and praying she would survive and be okay. Her entire front leg was missing from her chest down, all you could see were pieces of bone and muscle hanging out and amazingly she was wagging her tail and just looked afraid.

We then went back home and notified the police of the matter. We live on a dead end street and we are the last house on the street there is hardly any traffic at all. We were stunned by this tragic accident. At the end of street is also the NJ Transit Railroad but you can not just walk to the tracks there is a creek that separates our street from the railroad tracks and the only way to cross over is to walk down a path and then over a little man-made bridge that was built by some local kids. Jersey never went down to the end of the street. She is a very shy dog and always stayed in the yard. When the police arrived, we all searched our yard, neighborhood, and surrounding areas for a while and could not find Jersey's missing leg anywhere. The police could not figure out what had happened and neither could we. There were no trails of blood anywhere maybe telling or leading us to what had happened, the officer who was sent to us was also baffled because there was only a little bit of blood on the front porch by the front door, the officer said that maybe a bigger dog of some sort came up on the porch and fought with her and ripped off her leg. Which was strange because my fiancée's cousin was home and sitting on the couch by the front door and he would have heard something. After the officer had left I would say about 45 minutes had went by and the phone rang, it was the officer saying he had found Jersey's leg about 3/4 of a mile down the railroad tracks at the next railroad crossing. I was amazed that the leg was that far away from the house. The dog must have been chasing something or someone lured her down there because she would not have wandered that far.

She would have had to have walked down a path and then crossed over the little drawbridge which she would not have done on her own. The leg was severed off at that location on the railroad tracks by the looks of the position of the leg and the way the blood had been spattered. Later that evening the vet called me and asked me if we had figured out the whole story. I told him that her leg was found on the tracks, he said that he was not surprised because by the looks of her leg it was ripped off. He had performed surgery on her and she now only had three legs, but dogs can adapt to that situation and she had pulled through okay. She was a little weak because she lost some blood, but she was doing well and I was to call the next morning at 9:00am. The next morning I called him and he reported that she made it through the night okay and that we could come pick her up that morning and bring her home. When we went to go pick her up she was so happy. We had to limit her activity for the weekend and bring her back on Monday for a check up and bandage change. There was no way we were going to put her to sleep because she was missing a leg.

When we picked Jersey up on Saturday the vet said never in his 27 years of practice has he ever seen such and awful accident happen and the animal survive -- being hit by a train, getting a limb severed off, then returning 3/4 of a mile home to be transported the the vet and still be awake, conscious and not lose a lot of blood. She was just a miracle dog.

It has now been 5 days since the accident and she is doing great. She is walking on 3 legs with no problem, and is adapting well. No one can believe she got hit by the train and survived. It is a miracle and she is our miracle dog from above we love her. She still has stitches in her chest for now but she is doing great. She is missing her right front leg but she is still the same dog as before. Being hit by a train and losing a leg is horrible the funny thing is she had no other scratches or broken bones anywhere else on her body, just her leg was gone. She was laying on the table at the vet's office when we first arrived with this horrible injury and she was still wagging her tail and happy. According to everyone she is a MIRACLE!!!

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