Not all heroes wear capes and a brave Amazon driver did the unthinkable to save a dog from drowning.
The story of John Cassabria will inspire you to be a better person. He motivates people to take care of the less fortunate, including animals.
Cassabria loves animals and he is a proud owner of four dogs, four cats, and a snake. Imagine that! Well, this love couldn’t prepare him for a heroic rescue.
It was a hot August day, and Cassabria on his way to deliver packages for Amazon. The 24-year-old was making his rounds in Woburn, Massachusetts, and then took a wrong turn. At one point, Cassabria had to reroute the GPS tracker. He made a break and suddenly, there was a strange noise coming from one of the yards.
“I’ve never heard anything like that in my life,” Cassabria told CNN. “I actually heard it over the reversing beep of my van.”
Cassabria had to do something. He approached a fence and his heart started racing. The delivery guy was shocked.
“I saw a dog — the dog being Luka– barely standing in the pool,” Cassabria said. “My heart sank as if I was watching an ASPCA commercial from 2005 when they played Sarah McLachlan’s ‘Angel.”
Cassabria had to act quickly. He jumped over the fence and dove straight into the pool.
“I dove into the pool with my shoes, wallet, car keys– the whole nine,” he said. “And I swam with him (Luka) in my arms the best I could hold him from the midway point of the pool to the shallow end and hoisted him and myself out of the pool.”
Cassabria called the Woburn Police Department. The animal control officer lived in the neighborhood so he knew the owners really well.
Julie Caldwell was enjoying her weekend away from home when the phone rang. The police department identified her as Luka’s owner during the phone call and told her that the husky had gotten out of the yard. Caldwell was shocked. The gate was closed and Luka was too old to do anything like this.
She finished the conversation and the phone rang again. It was the animal control officer who was also her neighbor. He told her that Cassabria’s heroic efforts saved Luka from drowning.
“I dropped the phone. I just started crying and I dropped the phone,” Caldwell recalled. “I couldn’t even talk.”
Luka had never approached the pool before, and the whole situation was really shocking.
“We have a doggie door and he’s used that doggie door for 15 summers,” said Caldwell. “He goes outside, goes right to the bathroom, and normally goes back in and stays in the air-conditioned house.”
One of Caldwell’s neighbors agreed to look after Luka while she was enjoying her weekend. However, the smart pup used the short break between her departure and the arrival of the caring neighbor to jump straight into an adventure.
“This came as a complete shock to us,” the owner said.
Caldwell is really grateful for everything Cassabria did. He saved her dog and she wrote an email to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to inform him about the heroic act of the employee.
“I can’t thank him enough,” Caldwell wrote in the email, a copy of which an Amazon spokesperson shared with CNN. “Words cannot express how grateful we are to him. In fact, I have tears in my eyes as I write this email. Luka is doing fine thanks to your wonderful and courageous employee.”
