A beloved beagle who was hit by a train managed to limp home with a broken leg after being missing for 10 days.
Two-year-old Ronnie was so terrified by the fireworks that he ran out of his owner’s garden in Tunbridge Wells, Kent.
Owner Jo Wackwett was working from home at the time but her partner Grant noticed the dog had jumped over the garden gate.
Flight attendant Jo feared the worst when a train driver reported hitting a dog matching his description.
“Ronnie isn’t normally afraid of fireworks, but there was a particularly loud bang and my partner Grant saw him climb over our gate, which was quite an effort as he was quite high up,” he said.
“As soon as I found out he had escaped, I posted on social media and was contacted by a train driver who saw Ronnie on the tracks and thought his train had hit him as it rounded a bend.
“It happened near our local station, High Brooms, and when I sent him a picture of Ronnie, he was sure it was the dog he had seen.
“The driver was devastated, but I spoke on the phone with some closure about what had happened.
“As there were no further sightings of Ronnie, we assumed the worst and told our daughter he would never come home.
“We were all absolutely devastated and grieving for Ronnie.”
But after 10 days, a friend called Jo to tell her the good news – they spotted a battered Ronnie in a local park and followed him home to Jo’s house.
Realizing it was the lost dog, the person put a note in Jo’s letterbox saying they had rushed Ronnie to the vet.
Reunited, Joe said: “I sat on the floor and he put his head on my shoulder for a proper hug and left it there for a couple of minutes.
“He was skinny, covered in bad cuts and his leg was badly broken, but he was alive and that was all that mattered.”
Ronnie was treated for a broken leg at Anderson Abercromby, a veterinary clinic in Warnham.
Surgeon Federico Piccinno said: “Ronnie was extremely thin when he was admitted to surgery and could not use his left hind leg or put weight on it.
He also had several wounds on his body that looked like friction burns. X-rays were taken which showed that the leg was broken in several places.’
Federico said Ronnie’s injuries were caused by a low- to moderate-energy impact, making it possible the poor pup suffered “a hit from a train.”
“He could also have been injured if he jumped away from the train at the last moment and fell,” he said.
“His other injuries looked very much like burns or abrasions, which may have been caused by debris flying over the train tracks.”
Federico was worried about Ronnie’s surgery since his injury was only a few days old and his bones were healing in a way that would make surgery difficult.
Instead of the metal plate, the surgeon used an external fixator, a metal frame, to realign Ronnie’s bones.
“That was kept in place for about 12 weeks,” said Federico, “Ronnie dealt with it really well.
“He was able to recover at home but only allowed limited exercise on the lead so he couldn’t run too much as he is quite an energetic dog.”
Contact our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.