Search dog’s injury leads to disability leave for handler. Newspaper reports Montgomery County, MD firefighter did not like supervisor’s treatment.
Click here and then scroll down for the latest fire and EMS news from STATter911.com
Reporter Alan Suderman with the Examiner has the story of a Montgomery County, Maryland firefighter who was awarded a month’s disability leave after the search & rescue dog she handled suffered a career-ending injury. The firefighter says she became depressed after the incident. Here are excerpts from Suderman’s story:
County firefighter Laura Kane was on duty when her dog, Frankie, ran away in 2005. When the dog came back, it had a limp. Kane took the dog to a veterinarian, who said the dog had a dislocated hip and could no longer work as a search-and-rescue dog, court records show.
Kane, whose name was Laura Huggins at the time, asked her supervisors if she could take a sick day on June 24, saying she didn’t think she could do her job that day, according to court records.
“I was a mess because my heart and soul was in this dog, to train her,” Kane said in court records. “She is my best friend, my partner.”
Kane said her supervisors refused her request and were “very rough” on her. “They did not provide any detailed explanation of why could not go home,” she said.
Kane’s lawyer, Kenneth Berman, said Frankie’s injury led to Kane’s depression, which eventually required her to take a month off.
Two years after her dog’s injury, Kane filed a claim with the Maryland Workers’ Compensation Commission, which ordered the county to pay Kane’s medical expenses and reserved the right to consider her case in the future if a permanent disability claim were filed.
Reached by phone, Kane said she filed the workers’ compensation claim not because of the injury to the dog, but because of how she was treated by her supervisors.
“I questioned authority and they did not like that,” Kane said in a hearing before the commission.
A lawyer for the county declined to comment about the case. The county had appealed the ruling in Montgomery Circuit Court but settled with Kane earlier this year.
