A man separated from his beloved dog after a car crash has been reunited with her thanks to a frantic search by family and friends. Last week, while driving between Astoria and Portland in Oregon, Matthew Weatherman hit a patch of black ice and crashed into a tree. He was so seriously injured that he had to be airlifted to a local hospital. While first responders attended to his injuries, his dog Bravery got frightened and ran away.
Mathew was rushed into surgery and emergency care but even though he could not speak or get up out of his hospital bed, he was so worried about Bravery that he tried to go find her. His moms, Colleen and Susan Carette, were by his side.
“He kept trying to get up,” Susan told KPTV. “I know he was trying to go find her. He kept trying to find her and we knew [he was trying to say] ‘Where’s Bravery?’ but he couldn’t.”
That’s when they knew they needed to find Bravery to give their son a “fighting chance” to survive. So they went out to the scene of his crash to search for Bravery. Friends and volunteers came out to help and they began searching. The area was heavily wooded and for three long hours they looked until they got lucky and spotted her! But Bravery was so scared she ran away. That’s when Daisy the family’s dog came to the rescue.
“Search and rescue said not to call out Bravery’s name, nothing like that, they said just have a conversation and I did. I would tell Daisy ‘Where’s Bravery, where’s the puppy, do you hear the puppy?” Daisy seemed to understand what Susan was asking her do to and began looking around in the thick brush. After doing that for a while Susan heard a whimper. Susan followed Daisy and that’s when she saw “these little black eyes and this little snout in the bushes. I would not have seen her if she [Daisy] hadn’t alerted me.”
Daisy was able to convince Bravery to follow after her and Susan and Colleen soon had Bravery safely in their arms.
Bravery was found after a car crash with her dad
They immediately took Bravery to the ICU where she could see Matthew. Bravery got to sniff him.
“Bravery came and got to smell him and then lick him and Matthew was just so happy. You could just feel the energy emanating in the room,” Colleen said.
Bravery the dog reunites with owner
Even though Matthew couldn’t talk he found a way to thank his family. “When he was young, we taught our sons ‘I love you’ is [signaling with your hand,] one, four, three. We had gotten there before Bravery and we told him ‘Bravery’s coming, we found her,’ and all he could do was signal with his hand ‘I love you’ over and over and tears were coming off of him,” Susan said.
A GoFundMe has been set up by friends to help pay for Matthew’s medical bills. One of the organizers, Lee Ellen Reed said that Matthew has met with Bravery several times since the pair reunited. “She [Bravery] is starting to relax and feel safe after her trauma and has quickly become beloved in the ICU for her sweetness, obvious devotion to her dad, and of course her incredible ears,” an update read. “Matthew’s surgeries went well and he should be out of the ICU and into a longer term room in the next couple days. He spoke his first words last night and said he is happy to be alive.”
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