It took a Facebook group, a search team and a lot of patience, but a Collinsville man and his emotional support dog were finally reunited, three weeks after they were separated by a car crash.
Summer, a miniature Australian Shepherd, was ejected from the car during a crash with her owner, Andre Wild, on March 17 in Collinsville. Summer ran into the woods near Morrison Avenue and St. Clair Avenue before police could catch her and since then, hundreds of metro-east residents have been on the look-out or actively searching for her.
Wild was seriously injured in the crash, lacerating his liver and breaking multiple ribs. He was transferred from the ICU to the VA Hospital but still has a long road to recovery.
“She’s his love; she goes with him everywhere,” Wild’s sister, Linda Chambers said about Summer. “She is the love of his life.”
Chambers said Wild has not been able to rest since he heard his dog was missing, but on the Tuesday she was found, they were finally together again.
“I’m just so happy for my brother and he’s definitely going to need her,” she said.
The two were overjoyed to see each other, and Summer laid on Wild’s lap in the hospital as he held her and whispered to her.
Beth Owen started the Facebook Group “Finding Summer” after seeing news stories and Facebook posts about the lost dog. The posts were filled with comments from people asking how they could help. Owen decided to coordinate everyone’s efforts with the Facebook page “Finding Summer,” which had about 400 members by the time Summer was found.
People across the area started volunteering to go search for Summer, organizations dedicated to finding lost pets offered advice and others offered their animal traps to help catch the dog.
“It was just this organic falling together of this great group of people,” she said.
Chambers said she was beyond grateful for the group of strangers who found her brother’s dog, especially after she had to leave the area and return to her home in Florida.
“All these people, it is just wonderful that these people do not know me or my brother and they did this,” she said. “People just need to know that there are people like this in the community.”
Owen said setting up traps became the most important part of catching Summer because she was so skittish of people. She and other volunteers started mapping where Summer had been spotted and deciding where to place traps.
“We used maps and satellite imagery to locate where we were going to go. There was so much synchronicity; it just worked out so well,” she said.
Owen got a phone call from two State Park residents who had set out to track Summer.
“One of the guys called me about 8 and said, ‘We’re looking at her right now,’ “ Owen said.