‘Very scary’: Loose dog rescued from busy Cleveland highway

CLEVELAND (WJW) – Clevelanders heading home on the Jennings Freeway Wednesday night were alarmed to see a small dog running loose on the highway.

Heather Hutchins was part of a group of drivers who put on their hazard lights to slow down traffic behind them and then attempted to coax the dog out of harm’s way.

“It was very scary, very scary for that poor dog,” said Hutchins. “I knew that I couldn’t just leave. I had to stay there. I had to make sure that we got him to a safe place.”

Cleveland EMS Captain Daniel Nemeth heard a call from paramedics in a squad about traffic backed up on the Jennings. He thought there had been an accident, so he headed that way.

“When I got there, I looked over to one of the bystanders in her car. This lady was just frantic, you could see it on her face, like something bad was going to happen,” Captain Nemeth said.

When Nemeth spotted the dog, he and his paramedics decided to use their vehicles to form a rolling roadblock to keep the pup away from oncoming traffic.

“But the dog was so scared at that point, he just kept running,” said Nemeth.

As she watched the incident unfold, Hutchins told us she was overcome with emotion.

“My heart dropped, I was just crying, just praying,” she said.

The captain continued to shadow the dog and he then realized the pup was exhausted and starting to slow down.

“I rolled down the window and I just whistled at him, I said ‘come on’ and he stopped and looked at me. I said ‘this is my opportunity,’ so I sped up next to him, I threw open my door and he kind of looked at me. I said ‘come on, let’s go, let’s go for a ride’ and he jumped right in, sat on my feet and off we went,” he said.

When the good Samaritans realized that Nemeth had saved the dog, they responded by honking their horns and cheering.

“Tears of joy, tears of joy, yes, I was so happy that the dog was OK,” said Hutchins.

The dog did not have tags or an ID chip, so the captain decided to take him to the Cleveland City Kennel for safekeeping until his owner can be found.

“We always deal with life and death situations with our job. It’s very rare that we get an opportunity like this to step in and get help from everybody else that was there to make sure that dog was safe,” said Nemeth.

Anyone who can help reunite the dog with his family is asked to call the city kennel.