Family dog finds boy under rubble after western NC mudslide during Helene
This is really an incredible story
An 11 year old boy trapped in the rubble of
what's left of his home
The dog actually helped get rescuers to him
Now he's here in the Concord area where an entire
nursing team has adopted his whole family
Hello Jamie and Tucker have always been inseparable
I probably would have died if it wasn't for Tucker
When Hurricane Helene barreled through last week that bond was
everything
It was terrifying
The two were at home with Jamie's grandparents and sister
Gemma
Not far from Asheville when a mudslide slammed into their
house
All of a sudden I felt the house like this
and then I saw walls coming at me
I was on the couch with Gemma
Then the house mud slided and I face planted into
a wall like full body went flying
Grandma ended up on the roof but Jamie was thrown
under the stairs in a pile of rubble about 12
ft deep
It was scary
I thought I was all alone
No one else
I thought they died
And I had yelled for Jamie and Jim and Michael
Nobody answered me
I didn't know if whatever was dead and I was
screaming my head off
It felt like forever down there
If I couldn't see sunlight or nothing I just felt
water dripping on me
I thought I was either gonna drown or run out
of air
It was raining really hard and just flooding
And I I remember seeing the little girl but I
couldn't find the boy I couldn't find him didn't know
where he was because I was screaming on the top
of my lungs to my grandma and she couldn't even
hear me
His best hope his best friend Tucker he said um
he was above me um on top of it and
he was barking
I heard him whining and barking
Yeah he stayed on top of the pile and was
just barking away and I just thought the dog was
going crazy
I didn't realize he had located the boy Tucker stayed
put until firefighters arrived and used chainsaws to dig Jamie
out since he has a really big nose and and
really big ears
I think he could hear me and smell me
I thought he was trying to tell them where I
was
Jamie was flown to Adrian healthcare where one nurse is
fostering and the rest of the team has spent their
own money buying the basics for the family who lost
everything including their home
Oh I've been paying for it for over 25 years
$4000 short of paying it off
And my idea was that it would be you know
paid off
And I however long or short my life is that
we wouldn't have any mortgage payment and now it's all
gone but they're so grateful they have each other
And of course Tucker the siblings had used their allowance
money to pay for Tucker three years ago saving the
dog days before he was to be put down at
a shelter and he was the last dog there and
he when he saw us he just ran right up
to us
So you rescued Tucker
Yeah he rescued me right now
The family really doesn't know where to go
So even though Jamie is healthy he's medically cleared to
go home
The family is actually staying here the whole family in
this hospital room at atrium Health Cerris everything you see
here the entire nursing team chipped in to get them
because the family lost everything reporting in Concord Michelle Bowden
WCNC Charlotte