Real-life ‘Lassie’: Dog finds help, leads cops to owner’s car crash
LEBANON, N.H. (NewsNation Now) — First thought to be a lost dog, a German shepherd named Tinsley successfully led New Hampshire law enforcement to the site of its owner’s late-night rollover crash.
“The dog wouldn’t leave the highway,” Lt. Daniel Baldassarre of the New Hampshire State Police said on “Dan Abrams Live.” “It kept … running forward, stopping, kept running forward and stopping again. So at that point, they thought, ‘Well, maybe it’s leading us somewhere, let’s follow it and see where it goes.'”
Baldassarre says his officers followed the dog for about a mile before spotting a damaged guardrail and locating the crash.
“They were in disbelief,” Baldassarre said.
Two men were ejected during the crash. Both were taken to a hospital with serious injuries.
“Not being a medical professional, I’d say that the outcomes certainly would have been different had that dog not” helped police find them, Baldassarre said.
Tinsley’s owner has since been released from the hospital, but the other person is still being treated. A bulldog in the vehicle died at the scene.
There were no further details on the condition of those injured in the single-vehicle crash.
The crash site was near a highway junction just across the state line in Vermont.
Vermont State Police charged the dog’s owner with driving under the influence.