TAMPA, FLA. (WSVN) - A new medical program is providing injured K-9s with the care they need after being injured on the job.
Officials with the Tampa General Hospital Aeromed team held a multi-agency mass casualty drill near Sarasota to test their new equipment.
With this new program, injured K-9s can receive pre-hospital trauma care during the helicopter transport to the hospital. This makes TGH the first in Florida, and the fourth in the nation, to offer this level of pre-hospital emergency care for police dogs.
“We train our own people and train law enforcement in basic life support,” said flight nurse Donny Richardson.
The team at TGH released a video of one of the simulations featuring a critically injured $33,000 canine medical simulator, K-9 named Hero. The fake dog is modeled after the U.S. Military K-9 Astra that served in the Afghan war.
Officials arrive on scene, load the injured dog onto a gurney, and take it to a veterinary medical center about 20 minutes outside of Sarasota.
“We gave one of the deputies the simulator and the aircraft came, and he came running out with that simulator in both hands,” TGH Aeromed Flight Paramedic James Hutson said. “Our crews had no idea, the receiving hospital had no idea.”
Hutson said Hero is like any regular dog.
“They do bleed, they breathe, and we’re able to treat the associated wounds with that,” he said.
The idea stemmed from a 2023 gift of two canine medical simulators to TGH Aeromed.
Richardson said a K-9 in Highlands County was seriously injured during a mission. With no veterinarian immediately available, deputies had to drive the dog nearly 50 minutes to Polk County for treatment.
“Down in Highlands County, they had a K-9 officer go down during a mission. That K-9 officer reached out to their local vet, but they were unavailable. They ended up loading up that K-9 in a police car and driving an emergency all the way to Polk County to a vet that had the service,” said Richardson.
That 50-minute drive could’ve been cut down to minutes, he says, if this critical K-9 medical care had been available.
So, Richardson said he researched and found a class for military K-9s at MacDill Air Force Base and began executing his idea.
“We had to invent those wheels in the civilian world because pre-hospital care for law enforcement canines didn’t exist,” he said. “We see these K-9s as furry toddlers. A heart is a heart whether it’s in a canine or in a human.”
Since then, Hutson and Hero have trained TGH Aeromed staff across four counties and have begun storing specialized K-9 kits on each chopper.
Officials said they’ve also certified six fire rescue crews and 20 sheriff’s offices across Florida. Soon, they plan to take their instruction to Kentucky.
Overall, they tout the program’s effectiveness and say it’s been a game-changer for the four-legged heroes.
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