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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KOAT) — It’s a bittersweet story: After getting hit by a drunken driver, a couple’s service dogs got scared and ran away.
After reuniting with one, the family watched their second dog die.
It was 1:30 a.m. Monday when Sean and Jennifer Andersons were driving from Arizona to Denver with their two dogs when they were hit head-on by a suspected drunken driver. The crash happened on I-40 between Unser and Coors.
“I thought we were gonna miss ‘em and then next thing I knew we were stopped, and it was chaos in the truck,” Sean Anderson said.
He quickly got everyone out as the smell of smoke filled his truck.
“Got the door open in the back seat and the dogs went,” he said. “I chased Gracie probably a quarter mile down the freeway.”
The dogs, Gracie and Glock, were service dogs for Sean –who is a purple heart Iraq war veteran and Jennifer.
“I’m completely still in shock. Thankful there were angels watching over us,” Jennifer Anderson said. “But we need our family members back.”
They skipped the hospital and started to search. They posted to social media and eventually came to KOAT.
There was a breakthrough during the interview.
Jennifer Anderson received a call that Gracie was found by New Mexico Department of Transportation employees northwest Albuquerque.
“We followed her into the bushes. We ended up calming her down and brought her here,” NMDOT’s Raul Grajeda said.
But the search continued for the family’s second dog, Glock.
Sadly, the family tells me just as they spotted him and tried to get to him, he was hit by a car along I-40.
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