A “freak event” sparked outcry on social media after eight dogs died of heat stroke when the air conditioning in the cargo carrying the canines failed while in transit to a K9 training facility.
The incident occurred around 7:40 p.m. on July 27, when the dogs were being transported in a box truck from O’Hare Airport in Chicago to Michigan City, Ind., according to a statement published on the Lake Station Police Department Facebook Page.
The post, which has garnered more than 600 comments as of writing, mentioned the truck driver “wasn’t aware at the time that the AC unit failed, which caused some of the canines to go into heat-related medical distress” after a two-hour delay in traffic. The driver was alerted when he heard barking in the cargo unit, prompting him to pull into a roadside convenience store to check on the dogs.
According to the Facebook post, the driver “observed the canines in distress and began to remove the canines who were crated.” This was then followed by 911 calls to the Lake Station Fire Department and EMS, along with the Lake Station Police Department.
In an interview with NBC5, the Humane Society of Hobart executive director, Jenny Webber, recounts being called to a “chaotic scene.”
“They were seizing on the scene, dying on the scene, and had heat stroke,” she said, adding there were 18 adult German shepherds in the truck. “We noticed there were many infractions—one, that they did not have proper paperwork, nor was it presented to us,” Webber continued. “They were also transporting under conditions that weren’t safe to do so.”
The Humane Society of Hobart is the provider of animal control for Lake Station.
“This was really shocking for us,” Webber added.
The Lake Station Police Department reiterated in its Facebook statement that “this was not an act of animal cruelty or neglect but a mechanical failure of the AC unit that was being used in the cargo area.”