The dog had escaped from one of two vehicles involved in a collision shortly before 6 p.m. at the intersection of the Bunbury Road and the Trans-Canada Highway.
The tiny brown dachshund (a wiener dog), frightened and confused, had started running away from the accident and towards the bridge heading to Charlottetown.
Meanwhile, Emma and her mother, Tammy Collicutt of Fort McMurray, and Emma’s friend, Aysha Dulisse, 14, of Stratford, were driving towards Stratford over the middle section of the Hillsborough Bridge when they saw a teenage girl chasing what appeared to be a small dog on the grass area before the bridge approach in Stratford.
Collicutt pulled over once they were safely across the bridge, Emma jumped out and took off up the road to try to help capture the dog on what was now a busy, backed-up highway.
Emma said she was simply acting on instinct when she jumped out of a vehicle into busy traffic to try to help.
“I just got out of the car and ran,” said the 13-year-old on her quick actions. “The dog could have got hit.”
The girls both caught up to the dog on the bridge, but getting him to safety proved challenging.
“He was terrified,” said Collicutt of the dog running away from the scene.
The dog was trying to bite the other teenage girl, so Emma went back to the vehicle to get a towel to wrap him up in and a leash — both of which helped them safely get the dog off the bridge.
“He was shaking and he was hiding his head under Emma’s arm,” said Collicutt. “He liked (Emma).”
Emma said she got the idea to wrap the dog in a towel after watching videos online by Hope for Paws, a non-profit animal rescue organization, of people rescuing dogs on the streets.
“I’m like we have blankets, we have towels and a leash so I ran back over the bridge and got a towel and leash and ran back over the bridge and then the girl was carrying him and I said, ‘would it be safer to hold him in the towel?’ so we wrapped him in a towel and I carried him back down here.”
Emma said she has never done anything like this before but would do it again in a heartbeat.
Collicutt said she is very proud of her daughter.
“It is such a good thing to do,” said Collicutt. “Emma is hero.”
