On July 17, a tiny dog from Florida named “Goofuss” ran from a car that had been involved in a crash on Interstate 77 in rural Chester County South Carolina. There were tears. There were searches. There were Facebook posts. And there were good people doing good things for a stranger they had never met. Now, Goofuss is safe home in Florida, because the good people of Chester County cared. Firefighters and other emergency workers responded to the crash that night. They looked for the chihuahua that had dashed into the woods. “He had darted into the woods and we just couldn’t find him,” said T. Melton, chief at Richburg Fire & Rescue. “It was dark.”
Jean Powers, a woman in her 80s from Florida was the owner. Powers had adopted the dog years ago and the two had been inseparable. Powers and family members including John Ladd of Union County, N.C., searched for days for the dog and kept in touch with Melton and others. Firefighters searched and volunteers searched. Chester County Animal Control assisted with a humane trap that was put near the site where the crash happened, Ladd said.
Powers stayed in Chester County for days and searched near the scene. Ladd said “She was out there looking at age 87.” Powers finally returned to Florida while others continued to look. Richburg Fire & Rescue posted on its Facebook page -- a page that is a central way of communicating in rural Chester County -- about the missing dog. The word spread as the posts were shared.
That's when the Fire Chief got a phone call from a lady who works at the BP station near the highway. She told how a Chester County couple had seen the social media postings and believed the missing dog had wandered to their house.
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