Frantic Friday! The road to rescue is often a long and winding one with many curves, bumps and, such as today, some giant potholes. The original plans for today, although complicated in nature, were somewhat simple in our world. Pilot Jeff Bennett was to fly his aircraft from Tampa Executive Airport to Sarasota and pick up one dog. He was then flying to Marianna, Florida to meet a transport from Alabama. Jeff was to pick up 26 dogs for Suncoast Animal League, along with 10 other dogs for two Tampa based rescues. He would then drop off the one Sarasota dog to the Alabama transport so the dog can go back to Alabama and be placed on another transport bound for Chicago on Sunday. And then Jeff would fly back to Tampa Executive Airport where we and the two rescue groups would pick up our respective dogs around 3:00 pm. Simple enough, right? Well, the morning got off to a real bad start. On his way to the airport, pilot Jeff Bennett was side-swiped by another vehicle. Although we dont know the extent of his injuries, they were severe enough to keep Jeff from flying. Around 6am, Suncoast Animal League Rescue Coordinator Georgia Pappas received her first SOS call of the day. With the Alabama transport already en route, we would have to meet them via ground transport at a new location. Another problem was that a couple of our transport vehicles for the two hour round trip to Tampa could not make the six hour round trip to Perry, Florida. So more SOS calls went out for transporters who would have to leave by 10:30 am this morning. And, we needed more vehicles because the Tampa based rescue groups were unable to make the trip so we would have to transport their dogs back for them. Plus, the arrival time would be pushed back to 5pm so all of the volunteers and fosters would have to be notified of the changes. Fortunately, several new transporters stepped up and the rescue team left on time this morning. We will start setup of our triage area around 4:00 pm this afternoon behind Fairway Pizza and await our new arrivals. Anyone interested in fostering please contact us at [email protected]. Just another frantic Friday! Please keep our good friend and long time Pilots N Paws pilot Jeff Bennett in your thoughts. We wish you well, Jeff!
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 16:37:15 +0000
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