A UK man has recently gone viral after he was filmed smashing the window of a parked car with an axe in order to rescue a dog who he had discovered was trapped inside, The Sun reported.
Bill Morris of Swindon, Wiltshire, 58, claims the poor pup appeared “lifeless” inside the hot car, and admitted he couldn’t simply walk away without doing something to help.
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On August 10, Morris, a Registered Firearms Dealer for Thames Valley Police, was in the area to purchase a vacuum cleaner when he first became aware of the trapped dog.
Samantha Heaver and her husband, Eddie, had come across the parked vehicle themselves and noticed the owner had left a small Yorkshire Terrier locked inside for around 45 minutes.
When they saw Morris, they alerted him to the situation as well.
Morris said the dog looked “distressed” inside the baking car, which was parked directly in the sun in the middle of a hot afternoon.
As he described to The Sun ,
“The little Yorkshire Terrier was very distressed. It was on its side and was heavily panting – it was leaning up against the window. It was like it had become lifeless – its eyes were closed. It looked completely exhausted.”
He added, “The dog was minutes away from dying and I just thought ‘I need to do something here.'”
The trio agreed the best course of action would be to contact police, but that turned out to be a dead-end.
Although they initially called 999 (the UK’s version of 911), they were eventually put through to the non-emergency line, 101.
As Morris waited to get help, he knew the clock was ticking and the situation was getting worse the longer they left the dog in the car.
As he explained, “I was on hold for a very long time, with the lines saying they were extremely busy and at that point I made the decision to take the law into my own hands as the minutes were running away.”
That was when he went to his own car and retrieved his axe.
“I then asked Sam to be a witness to what I was about to do, and she filmed it for me,” he recalled. “I managed to break the window after eight attempts because I couldn’t get a good grip on it.”
After the window was smashed the dog was freed from the sweltering heat of the car. Then, Morris noticed a pair of police officers in a nearby shop.
He approached them and let them know exactly what had happened, explaining that he believed his actions were “humane but that they might think otherwise.”
The officers returned to the car with Morris to check the rescued pup, and take it to a vet for treatment.
Police have since determined Morris’ actions were “lawful” and have decided he will not face punishment for breaking into the vehicle to save the dog.
“People just don’t think it’s going to happen to them,” Inspector Steph Daly said at the scene, according to Metro . “They think ‘Oh I’ll be alright, I’m only going to be five minutes,’ but with what’s going on in the world at the moment, we have to queue for the supermarkets.”
Daly added, “People are animal lovers, and if they see something they’re not happy with, they’ll take action.”
Morris said he was still at the vehicle when the owner returned to find their window had been smashed in.
“I looked at her and asked her if she would leave her child in the car for an hour like that, and she said ‘no I’m really sorry I don’t know what I’m thinking,'” he told The Sun .
For Morris, the decisiveness he showed was honed out of necessity from long before that day.
As he said, “As someone who is ex-military I am very focused. And in that moment I knew that if I didn’t act then the dog was going to die…If I was in the same situation tomorrow I would do exactly the same thing. I don’t regret it.”
Samantha, who was there filming the moment Morris shattered the glass with an axe, uploaded the footage to Facebook where it quickly went viral.
As of writing, the video has been viewed over 64,000 times, with many users commenting to applaud Morris taking action to save the trapped dog.
“Well done for getting this on video so glad the dog is OK,” one person wrote. “I’d like to buy the man that smashed the window a few beers.”
Another added, “Well done to the guy who broke the window. Idiots don’t deserve a dog.”
h/t: Facebook | Samantha Heaver , The Sun , Metro
