Two Iowa nurses helped reunite a sick trucker and his puppy after the driver was forced to leave his pawed companion behind when he suffered a medical emergency.
The reunion happened on Thursday, August 10th in at the University of Iowa Hospital in Iowa City, Iowa.
According to KCRG, last week, truck driver Robert Prichard was driving his rig through Grundy County when he suffered a medical emergency. Prichard pulled over and called emergency services.
When the ambulance came to take Prichard to the hospital, he realized he would have to leave his young pup, Bandit, behind. Prichard left the pup in the cab of the still-running truck and left for the hospital.
The Grundy County Sheriff Department came to pick up the puppy and dropped him off at the Cedar Bend Humane Society.
Prichard was unable to leave the hospital for days due to his medical condition, but he called the shelter every day to check up on his puppy.
Then, Prichard claims, when he called the shelter on Wednesday, August 9th, they told him he only had until 5 p.m. that evening to pick Bandit up. If he failed to retrieve his dog, they said that Bandit would either be euthanized or given away to another family.
When two nurses from the hospital heard that Prichard’s pup was in peril, they drove the nearly two hours to Waterloo to retrieve the dog.
“I didn’t think it was really fair for someone to lose their animal just because they were in the hospital so I wanted to do everything I could,” Erin Niles, one of the nurses, said.
“I appreciate it and nobody has ever treated or helped me like these people have…” Prichard said.
Now that Prichard is recovering and Bandit is home, they plan to take a break from trucking for a while.
“The main thing is I got my buddy back,” Prichard said.