She protects him every day. Now this Air Force veteran needs help protecting her.<\/p>\n
TEXAS CITY, Texas \u2014 An Air Force veteran is asking for help after his service dog was seriously injured in a parking lot accident, leaving the family with mounting veterinary bills.<\/p>\n
James Bowers said he has relied on his service dog, Kate, for the past five years and never spends time apart from her.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs she was realizing that I was sick, then she realized that I was her human, so she\u2019s taking care of me,\u201d Bowers said.<\/p>\n
The incident happened Tuesday in the parking lot of a Buc-ee\u2019s in Texas City. Bowers\u2019 wife, Nancy, was walking Kate back to their car when a truck approached.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of a sudden it was there, and I turned and that truck was right there, I really thought I was going to get hit. That\u2019s how close it was,\u201d she said. \u201cI jumped back as fast as I could, and I tried to pull Kate back with her leash. I just couldn\u2019t get out of the way quick enough.\u201d<\/p>\n
The family said the truck ran over Kate\u2019s paw, causing severe injuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer leg was severed from the bone was broken completely in half,\u201d Bowers said.<\/p>\n
The driver stopped, but in the confusion the family rushed Kate to an emergency veterinarian and did not obtain the driver\u2019s information.<\/p>\n
Veterinary costs have quickly escalated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vet bills are like, tomorrow we\u2019ll have to pay $3,200, and the day before that it was $1,500, and the day before that was $2,000,\u201d Bowers said.<\/p>\n
As veterinarians work to save Kate\u2019s leg, total expenses have reached about $10,000, creating financial strain for the family.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s overwhelming, but it\u2019s also it doesn\u2019t matter what it takes. We\u2019ll find a way to make Kate whole again. She\u2019s part of our family,\u201d Nancy said.<\/p>\n
The Bowers are working with Texas City police to identify the driver and hope to file an insurance claim. In the meantime, they say the bills continue to grow. If you would like to help the Bowers pay for Kate’s recovery, you can do so here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"She protects him every day. Now this Air Force veteran needs help protecting her. TEXAS CITY, Texas \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":274141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-274140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274140"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274140\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/274141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}