Saving lives isn’t typical of the job of a delivery driver, but when John Cassabria found a dog in distress on his delivery run, he knew he had to act fast.
John, 24, is a big animal lover. He currently has a house full of fur babies – four dogs, four cats, and a non-fur baby, his pet snake.
It seemed like any other day for John on one August day in Woburn, Massachusetts, when he climbed into his Amazon van and prepared for a routine shift delivering parcels.
All was normal until John took a wrong turn mid-way through his route. He went to turn his van around, only for a strange sound to catch his attention.
According to John, the noise was unusual and incredibly loud. Speaking to CNN, he said:
“I’ve never heard anything like that in my life. I actually heard it over the reversing beep of my van.”
John’s gut instincts told him to investigate the source of the sound. So he climbed out of his van and followed the sound, arriving at a fenced-off yard.
When John looked over the fence, his instincts were proven right – he had spotted something very worrying in a back yard swimming pool. He recalled:
“I saw a dog – the dog being Luka- barely standing in the pool. My heart sank as if I was watching an ASPCA commercial from 2005 when they played Sarah McLachlan’s ‘Angel.”
John didn’t even pause for thought – he lept over the fence and rushed to the dog’s aid.
Still wearing his shoes, and with his wallet and his keys in his pockets, John jumped into the pool and swam with the dog in his arms. He carried it to the shallow end of the pool, then climbed out and pulled the dog out after him.
After making sure the dog was safely on the ground, John called the police. It just so happened that the animal control officer who responded to the incident knew Julie Caldwell, the dog’s owner.
Julie had been enjoying a weekend away, drinking cocktails, when the police gave her husband a call. It transpired that Luca, her husky, had escaped from her back yard.
This was unusual in itself, as Julie knew that she had closed her gates before leaving for her vacation, and Luca was too old to jump the fence.
When the police told the story of John’s rescue of Luca from the swimming pool, Julie was so shocked that she burst into tears. She said:
“I dropped the phone. I just started crying and I dropped the phone. I couldn’t even talk.”
Julie had arranged for a neighbor to look after Luca while she was away, but Luca had jumped into the pool before the neighbor had arrived.
Though she was still shocked by what had happened, Julie made sure to get on the phone to John and thank him “up and down” for his rescue. She then sent an email to Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s CEO, to let him know that one of his employees had saved her dog’s life.
Part of the email read:
“Words cannot express how grateful we are to him. In fact, I have tears in my eyes as I write this email. Luka is doing fine thanks to your wonderful and courageous employee.”
You can watch interviews with John and Julie in the video below.
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