A beloved family dog who was hit by a train and critically injured has miraculously survived.
The owners of the 'miracle dog' had just landed back in England from a holiday when they received the shocking news that their beloved Shar Pei was being driven to the emergency vet, reports Manchester Evening News.
Amy and Reece Parkinson, from Aspull in Wigan, rushed out of the airport as quickly as they could to get to the to get to Leigh, where Reggie was being kept on June 18.
The dog, Reggie, was staying at Amy’s father’s house while they were away in Spain.
But the sneaky dog managed to escape from the garden and go onto the train tracks behind the home.
‘Mr Crinkles’, as he is also known as, had severed his tail, and suffered dozens of lacerations to his head and body, as well as various fractures and dislocations to his limbs.
“There were questions we had to answer as to whether we would have to put him down as we didn’t want to make him suffer unnecessary pain,” Mrs Parkinson said.
“We went to the vets the next morning where he was in a little trolley. The vet prepared us before we went into the room.
“When he heard Reece’s voice he started to get up out of his trolley and was crying for him. The vet said that he could not believe he was stable and that it was a miracle.
“They believed that the train must have hit him just on the left side. By some miracle he has no spinal damage and no damage to his organs.”
To the shock of the family, Reggie had to have his left back leg amputated due to the damage.
There is consideration for another future surgery on his fractured pelvis once he has built up some strength.
The family said the children were ‘inconsolable’ when they realised it was only their Frenchie and Jack Russell cross Grem waiting to greet them when they arrived back home from their holidays.
However, much to the delight of Amy and Reece’s two-year-old daughter Willow, he is now home.
Reggie is now on the road to recovery and building strength every day eating and drinking - even walking on just three legs.
There will be ongoing costs for hydrotherapy to help Reggie rehabilitate as well, which is one of the reasons the family started a GoFundMe page to help with costs.
Reggie was born with a very rare neurological condition called Mega Oesophagus which meant that he could not be insured.
Therefore they don’t have insurance to cover this life saving treatment.
This condition also means that he had to eat his food in an upright position which requires the help of a special chair.
The family have already forked out more than £4,000 for the surgery to amputate his leg and there are more costs in the pipeline.
Amy and Reece already have costs of running a family with Willow and six-month-old Pearl.
So the 30-year-old solicitor and 31-year-old design engineer were blown away when they saw how much the fundraiser had generated over the course of three days - more than £5,000.
“It was really overwhelming to see all those donations,” she said.
“My brother told me to give the fundraiser a go because Reggie deserves it and the rest of what we don’t make we could just put on credit cards.
“If we got a couple of hundred pounds it would have been better than nothing. We could not believe it when we looked at how much we have already.
“Even people that we don’t know donated that we did not expect. I am tearing up just seeing it.”
