{"id":368041,"date":"2026-08-11T03:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T03:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/368041\/"},"modified":"2026-08-11T03:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T03:16:08","slug":"k-9-ace-recovering-after-tampa-general-hospital-helps-saves-him-with-airlifted-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/368041\/","title":{"rendered":"K-9 Ace recovering after Tampa General Hospital helps saves him with airlifted care"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is first and only hospital in Florida to offer these aero med services.<\/p>\n

TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Polk County K-9 Ace is recovering at home tonight after being shot while responding to a call last Thursday<\/a>. Ace was shot in the chest and the bullet exited through his front left leg, which had to be amputated.<\/p>\n

Those life-threatening injuries put Tampa General Hospital’s specialized K-9 officer care and transport program to work. This is first and only hospital in Florida to offer these aero med services.<\/p>\n


\n \"\" <\/p>\n


\n This story continues below. <\/p>\n

RELATED: Suspect dead, K-9 shot in gunfire exchange with Polk County deputies<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAce in particular, put himself in harm\u2019s way so that those deputies that were on scene did not get harmed. So, does he deserve less? Absolutely not,\u201d Donny Richardson, aero med flight nurse said.<\/p>\n

Weather delayed the flight, but he was eventually airlifted to Bradenton for emergency surgery,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was about a 25-minute flight once they loaded him up and it would’ve been a significantly longer drive,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n

In 2021, Governor DeSantis signed a law allowing licensed emergency transport services to fly injured police K-9s to veterinary facilities. In 2023, TGH started its program. Richardson calls K-9 patients fuzzy toddlers because they are similar to pediatric patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are merely doing treatments and taking care of these guys with ALS medicine that we already use on humans every day,\u201d Richardson said.<\/p>\n

The program serves more than 20 counties with one goal: to give K-9s like ace a fighting chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you’re first sometimes you’re laughed at, but I say all the time this is coming, so you want to be on this wagon or you’ll be chasing it,\u201d Richardson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is first and only hospital in Florida to offer these aero med services. TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Polk…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368042,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-368041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368041\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}