A corrections officer in Sacramento, California is credited with saving the life of his K-9 partner after it had ingested contraband that the team had located in an inmate’s cell.
Officer Ernest Trujillo and his K-9 partner Tucker were performing a routine check of inmate housing units when the dog became very interested in one of the cells and led Trujillo to it. Trujillo performed a thorough check of the housing unit as per protocol but found nothing out of the ordinary at first. After he had finished an initial search, he brought Tucker in to perform an even more thorough check of the unit.
After a few minutes of searching the unit, Tucker pulled a small cloth out from under one of the beds. Wrapped inside the cloth was what appeared to be a cap for a tube of lip balm with a dark substance inside. Trujillo says that at first he assumed the substance was black tar heroin since there had been several instances of inmate being caught with that in their cells.
As he was inspecting the substance more closely, he noticed that Tucker had begun behaving strangely, making unusual movements and whining. For Trujillo that was a red flag indicating that his partner likely ingested some of whatever the substance was.
Trujillo dropped everything and induced Tucker to vomit, which he did. Afterwards he immediately put the dog in his truck and took him to a nearby veterinary clinic. While he was en route to the vet, Trujillo got a call from his fellow officers informing him that the substance had indeed tested positive as heroin.
Upon arriving at the vet clinic, Tucker was given an injection of the poison antidote Naloxone HCL. Fortunately for him and for Officer Trujillo, Tucker made a full recovery that same day and was released.