Police officer Jeff Gonzalez witnessed a dog roaming the streets, but he thought nothing of it. He assumed the dog was lost and heading home. Officer Gonzalez would never have thought that the dog actually knew where he was going and it was him that the dog was looking for.
Office Gonzalez was on his normal patrol on the morning of February 13, 2015, in Germantown, Wisconsin. Since it had been snowing for a few days, and it was so cold outside, no one really wanted to be out. So you could imagine how surprised he was when he saw a dog running around. Gonzalez decided to take a closer look.
Officer Gonzalez always tried to help out lost pets, even though it wasn’t in his job description. Not only did it keep Officer Gonzalez busy, he also considered it a service to the community, especially when you think about how low the temperatures could get during the winter. But on this particular day, it wasn’t the dog that needed help.
Officer Gonzalez got closer to the street the dog was on. That’s when he noticed that the dog was running back and forth and barking loudly. He was frantic. Something was definitely wrong. Gonzalez worried that the dog would run in the road and get hit by a car. He wanted to try to calm the dog down, so he slowed down his car and pulled up next to the dog.
Once the dog noticed the car pulling up on the street, he stopped pacing and barked. Officer Gonzalez rolled his window down, and the dog began excitedly wagging his tail. Officer Gonzalez then got out of his car, but the dog started running around again. Gonzalez thought he scared him, but then he looked ahead.
The dog stopped running and looked back at Officer Gonzalez. It was obvious that the dog wanted him to follow. Gonzalez was curious, so he allowed the dog to lead the way. They were in the Autumn Ridge neighborhood, a quiet residential area where nothing really goes on. The dog turned into a driveway off of County Line Road. That’s when Officer Gonzalez realized what was going on.
There was a woman, most likely the dog’s owner, sitting on a chair on the front porch. Something was a bit strange, though. The woman was slumped over and didn’t seem to be moving. Officer Gonzalez immediately went over to her. Gonzalez touched the woman and he feared the worst.
“To be honest with you, I thought she was dead. And when I went up, she was very cold to the touch; her lips were blue,” he told Fox 6 Now during an interview. Thankfully, Gonzalez showed up just in time. When he checked her pulse, Gonzalez realized the woman was still alive. He immediately called dispatch and waited for help.
Officer Gonzalez’s partner was close by, so he gave him a call. In order to get the woman out of the cold, the partners carried her into the house. As they were waiting for the ambulance, they figured out who the woman was. Her name was Krystal Wendt. It wasn’t going to be easy, but it was time to call the next of kin.
As soon as Officer Gonzalez called Tianne Wendt about her mother, she felt weak. “Basically what he told me was, he said that they thought that she was dead. So it’s hard,” she said, as she fought back tears. Tianne and her aunt, Krystal’s sister, immediately went to the hospital where her mom was taken. Now, it was time to wait for news.
They soon found out that Krystal had a heart condition, which was what caused her episode. The doctors revealed that Krystal had been unconscious for almost an hour! Officer Gonzalez was a true hero. But he didn’t forget to give the other hero his credit, too!
The pup who brought Officer Gonzalez to Krystal is a black labrador, who goes by the name John Boy. Without John Boy’s help, Officer Gonzalez would have never been able to save Krystal. “I gotta believe that at this point he pointed me in the right direction,” said Gonzalez. It’s obvious that John Boy loves his owner, even though she’s not his first one.
“He’s very protective of my mom,” said Tianne Wendt about John Boy. That’s probably because before Krystal took him in, John Boy had been returned to the shelter three times! Tianne thoroughly believes that John Boy was meant to be with her mother. But what does Krystal believe?
When the news story aired on TV, Krystal was in stable condition but remained in the hospital to have more tests to determine when she was able to go home. Tianne said that her mother was excited to meet the man who saved her life, but until then, Tianne gave thanks for her.
When Officer Gonzalez and Tianne met each other, Fox 6 Now’s camera crew was there to witness it all. Tianne was in tears as she gave Officer Gonzalez a long hug. Tianne knew that without John Boy and Officer Gonzalez, her mother’s story may not have had such a happy ending.