Dog hitches onto ambulance transporting owner to hospital

SAN ANGELO, Texas, Nov. 18 (UPI) -- An ambulance transporting a man with complaints of dizziness was stopped en route to the hospital and flagged down by another motorist, because a Beagle was clinging to its running board.

Buddy the dog, a 4-year-old 35-pound Beagle mix, hitched a ride on the side of the emergency vehicle to stay with his owner, J.R. Nicholson.

"It was a crazy ordeal," said Tanner Brown, one of the EMTs.

The car flagged the ambulance down 20 miles of curving road into its hour long journey from Nicholson's Ranch in Mason County.

Ranch hand Brian Wright, who stayed behind to close up shop when Nicholson's ambulance left, told ABC News he noticed Buddy was missing but said, "Buddy is part Beagle and I never get too concerned when he's missing because he always comes back."

This time though, Buddy didn't come back.

"I stayed to close up here," Wright said. "But I couldn't find Buddy."

When Wright got to the hospital, he was surprised to learn buddy beat him there.

Brown had pulled the pooch on board: "We didn't have anything else to do but to load the dog up and put him in the ambulance and take him to the ER with us," he told the Standard-Times.

"Two things go through your mind in a split second," Wright said. "First, what could have happened to (Buddy), and second, you realize he is quite an animal."

A local radio station tweeted a pic of Buddy's adventure.

Buddy the Beagle rode on the side of an ambulance that was transporting his owner..awww http://t.co/qDjDf0GCmY pic.twitter.com/1ByRe3bTJu

— 94.5 The Buzz (@945thebuzz) November 17, 2014

Brown said Buddy took control of the situation right away to rush his owner to the hospital. "It was kind of funny. We were inside and he had jumped onto the control switch and turned on the sirens and the lights. We didn't know what was going on. It was kind of weird. I guess the dog wanted to be with his owner."

"I had two dogs (prior to Buddy), but I had to put one of them down," said Nicholson, who adopted Buddy four months earlier. "He came along at just the right time. He didn't have to go to the hospital with me, but he did. He's now a member of the family."

Wright says he hopes the story will inspire people to go to an animal shelter or thank a first responder.