A small dog might have suffered a horrible death in an elevator accident if a fast-acting hotel manager had not intervened and saved its life in the nick of time.
The heroic act was caught on video and shared to WYFF 4. In the video, the dog's owner was seen getting inside an elevator at The Roadway Inn on Laurens Road with his leashed dog, however the owner failed to notice the dog had wandered back outside the elevator leaving him shut on the outside.
As the elevator started to go up to the next level, the manager, Ben Duke, came out of a storage area and immediately noticed that the dog's leash was caught in the closed doors and moving upwards with the ascending elevator.
"The doors closed, and I guess he didn't realise that his dog had wandered off," Duke says. The dog was already being pulled upward by its leash, so Duke stepped in.
"I just grabbed it, and struggled with it, then I guess adrenaline set in or something, and I snapped the leash right above my hand," Duke recalls.
He saved the dog's life, which he later learned was named Boo Boo. "The dog was scared, and fought me pretty hard," Duke says. "In fact, he scratched me pretty good on my face. I don't blame him. It was pretty scary."
As for the dog's owner, who is a regular guest at the hotel, he came back downstairs with tears in his eyes. "He was crying and was so grateful," Duke shares. "He just came up and hugged me. It was pretty crazy."
Personally, Duke does not think much of the incident. He says anybody else in his shoes would've done the same thing to save the dog. "I was just reacting and doing what I was supposed to do in that situation," he says. "Everybody is calling me a hero, but I can't imagine the other outcome. I just did what you are supposed to do in this situation."
