The Dog Who Wouldn't Stop Searching
On September 11, 2001, Apollo disappeared into a hole in the rubble at Ground Zero.
Then a fireball erupted.
Seconds later, the German Shepherd came running back toward his handler, NYPD Officer Peter Davis.
Apollo was on fire.
Davis brushed the burning embers from his thick coat.
And Apollo went right back to searching.
Apollo was nine years old—an age when many police dogs had already retired. But that morning, he and Davis became the first canine search-and-rescue team to arrive at Ground Zero.
The conditions were brutal.
To reach the rubble, Davis later recalled wading through water that came nearly to his waist. Apollo searched across jagged concrete and dangerously hot debris. His coat was singed. His paws became cracked and bruised.
Still, he searched.
Apollo had been trained to find the living. But as the hours passed, the terrible reality of the site became clearer. Eventually, Davis had to physically pull Apollo away from the debris when the dog refused to stop looking.
And Apollo wasn't alone.
Search-and-rescue dogs and their handlers worked through wreckage, dust and toxic fumes in the aftermath of the attacks. Apollo became a symbol of all of them.
On March 5, 2002, he was awarded the PDSA Dickin Medal for courage and devotion to duty. Apollo had been selected by ballot to receive the honor on behalf of every search-and-rescue dog that had worked at the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
Apollo lived to be 14.
Twenty-five years later, we remember the people who ran toward danger that morning.
Apollo reminds us that not all of them ran on two legs.
❤️🐾
I for one am shocked the Jalen Carter, the guy who not only let his friends drive drunk but raced them and left them to die after they crashed to protect his draft stock, is a terrible person
I was at an Irish Pub in DC last night and one of these paid protesters sat next to me
I didn’t realize what he was at first, but he was drunk as hell
He said he needed to keep his receipt to get reimbursed for expenses
He was bussed in from Wisconsin
@LarrytheCoach@JosephFordCotto Exactly, why are poor peoples taxes going to pay for non-state schools they and their friends could likely never attend??
Have the state schools do this stuff with our taxes
CNN is suggesting that Elon did a Nazi salute during his speech at the Capital One Arena.
He was literally motioning "my heart goes out to you."
This is why no one trusts the fake media.
More than nine months after 14-year-old Gavin Knupp was killed in a hit-and-run outside Ocean City, a 22-year-old man has been charged in his death. https://t.co/QUiv5NTosK