Dog's instincts save the day after 86-year-old falls in Florida neighborhood thumb
A loyal dog led Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office Deputy Devon Miller (pictured at left) to its owner's 86-year-old injured mother who fell during a walk in Destin, Florida.
A loyal dog led Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office Deputy Devon Miller to its owner's 86-year-old injured mother who fell during a walk in Destin, Florida.

Police body camera footage shows a family's 100-pound dog save the day after it led a sheriff's deputy to their missing, injured, 86-year-old grandmother in Florida.

"Sometimes heroes come with four legs and a wagging tail," the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office, which responded to the scene in Destin, posted on its official Facebook account on Monday, Oct. 6.

Destin is in the state's panhandle, about 150 miles west of Tallahassee, the state capital.

According to the sheriff's office, on the evening of Sept. 25, the woman's "distraught husband" alerted police that his wife was missing after she failed to return home from a walk with their son's dog named Eeyore.

Deputy Devon Miller was on a routine patrol and responded to the couple's home when the call came in, sheriff's office spokesperson Michele E. Nicholson told USA TODAY on Tuesday, Oct. 7.

"She never takes more than 10 or 15 minutes... It's almost an hour now, it's over an hour," the 86-year-old's concerned husband told Miller in bodycam footage from the night of her disappearance.

Little did they know, Eeyore was waiting in the shadows to help the grandmother.

'Bring me to your mommy'

The video footage later shows Miller spotting the dog along a neighborhood street from her patrol car.

"Hi, baby. Where's your mommy?" the deputy asked the dog when she saw it on the street near another vehicle. "Bring me to your mommy."

Footage then shows the dog leading the deputy in the dark towards a sidewalk, keeping close as it drags a blue leash.

"I've got you, ma'am," the deputy said after seeing the woman nearby on the ground. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"He led you to me?" the woman responded. "He wouldn't leave, he kept coming back to me... I'm not even his owner. I'm his grandmother. Oh, Eeyore, you're a good boy."

'Tumbled and injured' grandmother located, rescued

The sheriff's office determined the grandmother "tumbled and injured herself while walking her son's dog."

The woman, who was alert and conscious on scene, suffered a non-life-threatening leg injury, Nicholson said, and was taken to a medical facility for treatment.

"It was a faithful four-legged friend who brought an OCSO deputy to her location," the sheriff's office wrote.

Natalie Neysa Alund is a senior reporter for USA TODAY. Reach her at nalund@usatoday.com and follow her on X @nataliealund.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Video shows loyal dog lead deputy to 86-year-old grandma who was missing and injured

Reporting by Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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