Heroic Dog Barking Nonstop Leads Police to Rescue Two Men From Car Crash

After leading authorities to the damaged vehicle its owner had been driving with a buddy when he crashed, a dog has been hailed a hero.

Heroic Dog

According to New Hampshire State Police, a trooper and Lebanon police officers responded to a complaint of a loose German Shepard on Interstate 89 near the New Hampshire-Vermont border in Lebanon late on Monday night.

The dog refused to be contained when the cops tried to get near it, and it continued to run northbound, crossing the state boundary into Vermont.

The dog's behavior "almost alerted them to what was off the roadway," New Hampshire State Police Lt. Daniel Baldassarre told NBC5 local television.

A broken part of the guardrail at the I-89 and I-91 intersection a short time later by the trooper and cops. The police then "saw a substantially damaged pickup truck that had flipped over," according to New Hampshire State Police, and "when the officers examined more, they found that both passengers of the pickup truck had been ejected from the vehicle and were hypothermic and gravely injured."

Cam Laundry, 31, one of those males, was eventually recognized as the dog's owner. Tinsley is a year old Shiloh Shepherd, a remarkably similar breed to a German Shepherd.

In an interview with NECN and NBC10 Boston on Tuesday, Laundry said he was knocked unconscious when the vehicle flipped, and he was thrown off the vehicle.

"She's my little guardian angel, you know?" Laundry told local station NBC5. "It's a marvel that she had that sort of knowledge to perform what she did."

On Best Behavior

According to police officers treating the injured men, the dog was highly well-behaved. "It stayed there nice and quiet right next to its owner the whole time we were commencing our patient care," Hartford Fire Department Captain Jack Hedges told NBC5.

Lebanon is located in far western New Hampshire, directly on the Vermont border, some 125 miles northwest Boston. The weather that night in Lebanon was freezing, with a high of 22 degrees and a low of 11, which is about average for this time of year.

At Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, both guys were treated. The passenger's bulldog was the second dog involved in the incident. It avoided the incident as well, according to police, but was unfortunately struck by a car and killed on the highway.

Under the Influence

Laundry is accused of driving while inebriated, according to state troopers. He admitted to having a few beers in local interviews, but he didn't feel the amount he'd had was excessive for him to operate a car.

It was a wake-up call," Laundry stated in the interview, expressing regret for his passenger's dog's death but noting that he and his companion were fortunate not to be harmed worse.

When people drink alcohol, their blood vessels in the extremities widen, causing the body to lose heat fast. They are more prone to hypothermia. Thus it was fortunate that officials located the injured guys when they did.

"We've got a lot of fantastic tales with our trained K9s and everything," Lebanon Chief Phillip Roberts told NBC 10. "But not just a domestic pet to take you down that route and have a hand in saving some lives."

A Loyal Companion

Tinsley, according to Laundry, never leaves his side. He added, "Everybody loves Tinsley!" He said, "We're always together; in that vehicle that was destroyed, she's always my co-pilot. I'm just grateful she's always with me."