When Jeff Rai saw an animal lying prostrate in the middle of the road, he knew instantly that he couldn’t just ignore it and drive around.
Without much thought for his own safety, Rai pulled over at around 5 p.m. on Monday, jumped out of his car and began trying to divert the traffic on No. 5 Road near Westminster Highway away from what he now realized was an injured dog.
However — as seen in his dashcam footage — Rai had to shout at motorists driving past him as he tried in vain to pull the dog, a German shepherd, to safety.
To make matters worse, the seriously injured dog, clearly in a lot of pain, was growling and snapping at the Good Samaritan as he attempted to manoeuvre it via its collar off the road.
“I tried my best to stop other traffic, but cars were still whizzing past me,” said Rai, who lives nearby on No. 5 and Williams roads.
“I had to shout at other drivers, they were going to hit me, too. But I managed to finally get him across the road and off to the side.
“I didn’t see who hit him. If I did, I would have chased the driver for sure.”
Click here to watch Rai's dashcam footage (Warning; some of the content may be upsetting for some readers).
Unsure of what to do or who to call, animal lover Rai, who has a pet parrot that travels with him in his car, quickly drove home and called the police.
Shortly afterwards, Rai — who witnessed his cat being killed last year on the same stretch of road — met the police at the scene, but the dog was gone.
Unbeknown to him, in the interim period of time, someone else had called the Richmond Animal Protection Society (RAPS), which is the City of Richmond’s animal control contractor.
RAPS’ CEO, Eyal Lichtmann, said one of its animal control officers was called to the scene and was in the process of taking the injured dog to a vet when the animal, unfortunately, died.
“The dog did have a collar and the family that owned the dog were notified,” said Lichtmann.
“They came around and collected the dog. This is the sad part of the job I’m afraid.”
