A Haltom City firefighter takes matters into his own hands not only to help save a severely injured puppy, but also to give him a good life.
Last Friday, November 5th, the Haltom City Animal Services Center received a pit bull puppy who was severely injured.
"He had a three-inch laceration of the top of his head down to the skull," says Chris Buck, a firefighter with the Haltom City Fire Department. "Then he had an old wound on the side, kind of look like a burn. He's got a small skull fracture also."
Three of Buck's fellow firefighters were at Animal Services at that particular time for unrelated routine work.
Those firefighters were going to bring the puppy to the closest veterinarian, but that was not a viable option.
"(It was) five to ten minutes before closing time, and they had no other options," says Buck, who not only was not with those firefighters at that time, but was enjoying a day off at home. "Their only option was either for somebody to come get him and take him to get treatment or alternatively put him to sleep. Because of his injuries, they weren't equipped to deal with that there."
Buck was not about to let anyone put the poor puppy down.
"I said, 'Don't do anything, I'm coming to get him,'" says Buck. "That's when they took him up to Fire Station 3 there in Haltom. They took care of him and cleaned him up a little bit until I got there, and I took him along to get him fixed up."
Buck drove the puppy one hour to Weatherford to the closest 24-hour emergency veterinarian.
There, doctors were able to successfully stitch the puppy up.
After the puppy got a clean bill of health, Buck adopted him and named him Atlas.
Atlas is now a healthy puppy living his best life with Buck and his family on their ten-acre property.
"He's acting like nothing's ever happened," says Buck. "He's 100% puppy."
As one can imagine, Buck ran up some pretty hefty bills at the emergency vet, but he won't have to worry about them.
Thanks to generous Haltom City donors, Buck will be fully reimbursed for all of those expenses.
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