Two dogs go missing from the scene
By Holly J. Wagner
Sun Correspondent
It was supposed to be the start of a new life. Instead, a tragic accident ended one life and forever changed another.
Roommates Jesse Root, 21, and Faith Corcoran, 18, set out from California Feb. 8 on a cross-country move. They had lived together on Root’s grandmother’s ranch until she sold it.
The pair were bound for Indiana, where they would move in with Root’s grandfather, who has dementia, to care for him. They packed Root’s 2001 Ford Expedition with their pets and whatever necessities they could fit, then set off to their new home Feb. 8.
Corcoran’s father was to follow a few days later with another carload of their belongings.
Their plans slammed to a halt around 3 pm Feb. 9. The pair had spent the first night of their trip in Flagstaff, Ariz., and by afternoon of the second day they were rolling past the Manuelito rest area, west of Gallup.
Eastbound traffic on I-40 had slowed because of bridge construction around the 8-mile marker and was backed up for two miles. There, near the 6-mile marker, a semi-truck in the right lane had come to a stop at the back of the line.
Root realized it too late. She swerved toward the right shoulder, but the SUV yawed and she lost control, skidding into the back of the semi, according to the accident report and McKinley County Undersheriff James Maiorano.
Although the construction zone was marked with signs and cones, the markers didn’t extend as far back as the slowed traffic, Maiorano noted, adding, “I don’t believe there was anything they could have done differently.”
A witness told deputies he’d heard tires screeching, then heard and saw a hail of dog food hitting his own vehicle right after the crash.
“There was a large plastic bin of dog food in the car,” Maiorano said. “When the crash happened, the bin was ejected. The lid came off and the dog food went everywhere. Once the windows break, it’s difficult to keep those items inside.”
Fire rescue crews extricated Root from the wreckage and she was taken to a local hospital. A Gallup McKinley Humane Society animal protection officer picked up two crated pets, and responders waited on scene for the coroner’s investigator.
It took time for law enforcement to track down their families, who learned of the accident the following morning, said Root’s aunt, Melissa McKown.
Corcoran, who went by the name Julian, died at the scene and Root was badly injured. She was later moved to UNM Hospital in Albuquerque, and spent her 22nd birthday there. She only learned on Valentine’s Day that her companion hadn’t survived.
Root suffered multiple broken bones, including her right arm and hip and left clavicle. She suffered skull fractures and initially had a brain bleed, which doctors were able to repair.
“She’s one bruise from head to toe,” McKown said, adding Root faces six to eight weeks of recovery in a hospital or rehabilitation facility.
Because of Root’s fragile condition, medical personnel waited until her parents could get to town before telling her Corcoran had died.
“With all the injuries, they didn’t want to tell her too soon. They wanted to make sure she was safe and out of the woods and recovering. They wanted to make sure both of her parents were there to support her,” McKown said. “We’re very, very worried about her mental state now, at losing her best friend.”
Root’s mother picked up her Maltese mix from the Gallup shelter on her way to Albuquerque Feb. 12. Bella, who had always been Root’s emotional support animal, was allowed into the hospital to see her Feb. 13.
She took up a post on Root’s hospital bed and was finally able to relax and sleep after they were reunited, McKown said. By then, all of the dogs had been found and rounded up.
THE TALE OF TWO HEELERS
Dog rescues are, sadly, a day-to-day occurrence for animal control officers. But this was a traffic accident rescue that includes four dogs and an opossum.
“This is the first opossum in my seven years,” said Gallup Animal Protection Supervisor Tiffany Hubbard. “Miraculously, the animals were all ‘petrified’ but unharmed in the accident. That didn’t mean the rescue was easy.”
In fact, it played out over two days.
“What we thought was initially one dog and the opossum, then two dogs and an opossum, then it came out that there were four dogs and an opossum,” Maiorano said.
Family members knew Root and Corcoran were piloting a mini-ark across the country: traveling with them were Bella; cattledogs Zoey, Bandit and Luna; and Tonji, an opossum that Root had rescued from a roadside when it was a baby (known as a joey) and kept as a pet.
But responders didn’t know that right away because of the delay in contacting the families. While Bella, Tonji and Zoey were in custody, Bandit and Luna were still at large. The family feared the worst.
“I really couldn’t do anything from Indiana,” McKown said. “We knew that [Animal Protection] had two dogs and an opossum. We thought the other two dogs were deceased.”
But not long after the accident, people began posting on Facebook groups – including MCSO’s – that they had seen a dog roaming in the area.
“That’s when I went to work,” McKown said. “I felt very helpless otherwise, so I became a social media warrior. I spent the next 10 hours trying to find anyone who knew anyone in that area who could help. I called truck stops, I posted on social media, I just went crazy because I knew the only thing that was going to make this situation any better at all was her getting her dogs back.”
McKown connected with Four Corners Pet Alliance on Facebook. The nonprofit group posted a flyer about Bandit and Luna, and tagged Katrina Karr, a tracker/trapper with the nonprofit Yavapai Humane Trappers in Arizona.
Karr arrived Friday morning and worked with Gallup animal protection officers to find and trap the canine fugitives.
“She was a godsend. She went to work, she knew exactly what to do,” McKown said.
The team scrambled up the hillside next to the highway at mile marker 6.
“We had to climb up a pretty steep hill. The dirt was really soft, claylike. I know people driving by were laughing at us,” Karr said. “But the top of the hill was pay dirt.”
Both dogs were sleeping near a tree, but seemed traumatized and skittish. Karr said it was just lucky the missing dogs were heelers.
“Heelers are so predictable, what they are going to do, and I knew they were there,” she said. “They are so hooked on their owners; every single accident I’ve worked with a heeler, they didn’t go anywhere. They will stay there. They might hide, but they don’t leave.”
From there, the rescue took about an hour and a half, Karr said, as rescuers baited traps with some food and the dogs’ blankets for a familiar scent. Another stroke of luck: the dogs were crate-trained.
“I always give owners high five when their dogs are crate-trained,” Karr said. “It just makes it so much easier for them to go in.”
Bella is with Root’s mother, Sandy Hyatt, and the rest of the menagerie is at the Gallup shelter while the family figures out what to do next.
McKown is grateful for the help, so she started donation campaigns for the Gallup shelter and Yavapai Humane Trappers. By Feb. 15, the campaigns had raised $500 and $2,200, respectively. Those who wish to donate may do so on their Facebook pages:
https://www.facebook.com/1174581007/posts/ 10224233135394118/?d=n and https://www.facebook.com/1174581007/posts/ 10224223421671281/?d=n .
