Man arrested after breaking window to rescue dog from hot car

A man from Athens, Georgia, saved a dog from a hot car but was arrested because of how he did it. The move landed Michael Hammons behind bars. "I heard someone say there was a dog in distress in a hot car," he said. Without thinking, the Desert Storm veteran jumped into action.



And with his wife's wheelchair leg, he smashed the window, freeing the dog. "I've got PTSD, and I've seen enough death and destruction," Hammons said. "And I didn't want anything else to happen if I could prevent it." But witnesses say when the owner came out of the store, she was furious, and demanded deputies take action.





Oconee County Chief Deputy Lee Weems, said: "We would not have made those charges on our own. The deputies on scene say the owner of the dog and the car were very insistent that he be charged with criminal trespassing." She told police it had only been five minutes. But witness Diane Byard says: "It wasn't just five minutes like the lady stated, it was a lot longer. I personally felt the heat in the car; I saw the dog panting. This dog was in distress."


YouTube video.

Byard added: "If it is 80 degrees outside, within 30 minutes, it will be 114 degrees inside a vehicle, even with the windows cracked." The owner was cited for leaving the dog in the hot car. But without surveillance video, deputies say it is hard to tell how long the dog was actually left in the car. Georgia state law does allow an individual to break a window to save a child in a hot or cold car, but not a pet, and the laws are the same for the state of Missouri. That is something that animal advocates say they are working to change.