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The Columbia County Sheriff’s Office accepts five K9 emergency first aid kits from Century Ambulance, the county’s EMS provider. Sheriff Mark Hunter, second-left, held a photo op with Century’s operations manager for the area, Steve Stith, pictured in the white uniform, along with K9 Drago, K9 Rek and their human counterparts. (COURTESY)
Brave, loyal and tough — law enforcement canines will charge right at a potentially dangerous subject without hesitation if the situation deems it necessary.
In December, for example, K9 Casper of the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office helped chase down a naked, mud-covered man suspected of being on meth. The suspect decided to get on the ground and grapple with Casper, biting the animal’s ear before deputies managed to subdue him.
If Casper had been injured, he could have been especially at risk compared to his human partner.
“The difference is with dogs, when they get hurt, you can’t just call an ambulance for them,” said CCSO spokesperson Murray Smith. “You have to stabilize them and take them to a vet for treatment, so it’s critically important for their life that we can provide that first aid and get them somewhere they can get professional help.”
Now, Casper is better equipped for those kinds of situations, deputies say.
Century Ambulance prepared a batch of “K9 emergency kits” and gave them to the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office on Thursday morning. There were five kits total — one for each of the K9 teams and one for the CCSO SWAT vehicle.
The contents are comparable to what one would find in a human first aid kit, said CCSO spokesperson Murray Smith.
K9 Drago and K9 Rek were the first two to receive the kits.
Last year, Florida strengthened a law protecting K9 first responders by enhancing penalties for injuring a law enforcement working dog, CCSO wrote on Facebook.
On behalf of the Sheriff’s Office, Smith thanked Century Ambulance, which holds a contract making it the county’s exclusive EMS provider.
“We are very grateful to the folks at Century Ambulance for not only their partnership in keeping our community safe, but in their interest in keeping our canine partners safe,” he said. “We hope that they get a lot of dust on them and we never have to use them — but if we do, it’s nice to know we have the ability to stabilize the animal and get them to a vet for treatment.”
The Sheriff’s Office also posted about the donation on Facebook.
“The canine members of those teams are more than mere tools; they are family,” CCSO wrote on the social media site. “In an emergency where seconds or minutes can make the difference between recovery or death, these life sustaining kits will make that difference.”