A Stormy Night in Las Vegas

It was a stormy night with flooding and thunderstorms in Las Vegas. I was driving a big truck on the highway in the right lane with traffic beside me. Power was out in the city so I could only see directly in front of me with hard rain making it difficult. I suddenly heard two thumps. The person riding with me said "don't look back" because they had looked back and saw it was an animal I had run over. The dog dodged the vehicle beside me trying to cross the highway and ended up under me before I even saw it. I pulled over & we went to see if it was still alive and it was. Luckily it was in shock so it let us wrap a towel around it and I sat in the rain in the back of the truck holding the dog until we got to an emergency clinic. The vet said it was in bad shape, but not because he was run over. He said being run over may have saved him as he was malunurished, deydrated, in very bad shape & must have been on his own for a long time. He didn't have any broken bones or internal injuries,but had a torn ligament in his front arm & a lot of missing skin from road rash. He had to wear a splint & bandages & needed a lot of care. We advertised the found dog & no one claimed it. It cost over $1500.00 to heal him. Since he wasn't ours we could put down for less. I chose to pay and I nursed him to health. It was like having a baby. He was my first pet & ended up being a beautiful, gentle golden retriever I named Buddy.

Atheena
San Antonio, TX