We like to throw the word “hero” around all willy nilly, but Michael Hammons is the real thing. A Desert Storm veteran who suffers from PSTD, Hammons sprung into action this week to save a dog trapped in a hot car in Athens, Ga. Unfortunately, the dog’s owner doesn’t see it that way.
When Hammons came across the Pomeranian-mix in the locked Mustang, several people were already standing around the car already having called for police. Growing increasingly worried for the tiny panting creature, Hammons grabbed the leg of his wife’s wheelchair and smashed the window of the car, freeing the dog.
Shortly after, the dog’s furious owner came out to find her window smashed. When police showed up at the scene, she demanded that Hammons be arrested and charged with criminal trespassing, reports Fox 5 News Atlanta.
“We didn’t want to charge him, but he told us he broke the windows and when you have a victim there saying she wants him charged, we had no other choice,” said Chief Weems.
“He has seen so much, and been through so much, his thing is he’s got to save him. Michael says I have to save lives because I couldn’t save everyone else over there,” said [his wife] Saundra Hammons.
It’s unlikely that any jury would find Hammons guilty, but he’ll probably still have to pay for the window, which he says he’d gladly do over again. If there’s any comeuppance to this story at all, the piece of human garbage who had a man arrested for rescuing her dog from a painful death was given a citation from animal control.
(New York Daily News via Gawker)