Navy Lopez and her 6-year-old son Damian Ortiz are lucky to be alive after the holiday weekend. The mother and son — and their 3-month-old mixed breed puppy, Bo — were involved in a massive car accident near Beaumont, Texas on Thanksgiving day.
More than 100 vehicles were damaged in the I-10 pileup, including their Jeep, which spun off the road in the collision.
Thankfully Lopez and Ortiz crawled from their car relatively unscathed. As Lopez turned back to help Bo exit the wreckage, the shaking young pup was spooked. Bo bolted from the vehicle and ran off into the distance as Lopez and her devastated son watched.
“I looked for him everywhere and couldn’t find him,” Lopez said of Bo.
After searching the area of the crash for their missing dog, Lopez and her son went home to recuperate after the accident. Ortiz was heartbroken, his mother said.
“I just told him somebody was going to find him and return him,” Lopez explained.
But all her son could think about that day was Bo. “That’s all he talked about,” Lopez told OzarksFirst.com. “I want my puppy, I want to get Bo. Where’s Bo?” said Lopez, remembering what her son asked that day.
Meanwhile, while the mother and son tried to rest after the accident, tow truck driver Blake Jones arrived at the scene of the pileup to help clear wreckage from the interstate. Looking up from the wheel, Jones saw a puppy scurrying near the roadside.
“He shows up out of nowhere, first time I’d seen him all day,” Jones told KENS5 News San Antonio. “At first, I thought he was just wandering around. Then, I got to thinking. He was way too friendly.”
Jones figured out that the pup must’ve been involved in the pileup somehow, perhaps escaping from one of the wrecked vehicles. The tow truck driver scooped the puppy into his arms and made a phone call to his girlfriend, Jesi Courville. Courville told Jones to send her a couple of clear photos of the pup so she could post them online. She hoped that social media could reunite the pup with his worried owners.
Sure enough, moments after the photos went live on the web, Courville’s phone rang. On the other end was Navy Lopez, her son Damian celebrating in the background — his lost puppy had been found.
The group met up near the Texas-Louisiana state line Friday for the happy reunion. Bo jumped into the little boy’s arms while his mother thanked Jones and Courville for rescuing her son’s best friend.
“This is a great Thanksgiving blessing for him to be able to get his dog back after such a tragic and scary day,” Courville said.
Sources: KENS5.com, OzarksFirst.com
