When Roxanne the pit bull was found abandoned, her rescuers had no idea how desperate her situation was. But when they took a closer look, they noticed that the enormous chain was cutting deeply into her neck. What’s more, the swelling it caused was quite horrendous.
This rescue occurred in summer 2016. Roxanne was just one year old, and she was roaming the streets of Columbia, South Carolina. Naturally, her rescuers were worried when they saw how severely her head was swollen.
In fact, the pooch’s condition was clearly critical. Indeed, nobody could tell how long she had been like this, but it was long enough to ensure that the large chain wrapped tightly around her neck was causing lasting damage. Obviously, dragging it around the streets had not been good for her.
Luckily, she was taken to Pawmetto Lifeline animal shelter, which runs the Help Every Animal Reach Tomorrow (HEART) program. It was here that it was discovered that the chain around her neck weighed 6.3 pounds. Shockingly, that’s more than a tenth of the dog’s 50-pound body weight.
However, Pawmetto Lifeline did not have the facilities to deal with the medical care that Roxanne so desperately needed. Therefore, the shelter reached out to Rescue Dogs Rock NYC.
This charity organization is run by volunteers with the goal of saving abused and neglected dogs and helping find them loving homes. It was set up in 2015 by Jackie O’Sullivan and Stacey Silverstein, and it relies mainly on donations.
After receiving images of Roxanne’s horrific injuries, then, O’Sullivan admitted that she and Silverstein “couldn’t believe [their] eyes.” Indeed, she described Roxanne’s traumas as “the worst of the worst.”
“We were absolutely STUNNED and stopped in our tracks,” she wrote in a post on the Rescue Dogs Rescue NYC Facebook page. “It’s as if everything stops when you view something this awful and you have to take a minute to regroup and take it all in.”
One thing O’Sullivan did know, however, was that Roxanne’s condition was life-threatening. And so, without a second thought, she, her colleagues and a team of vets rushed to the pit bull’s aid.
Astonishingly, the vets had to use a set of bolt-cutters to free Roxanne from her hefty chains. This was because the extent of her swelling meant that they couldn’t be slipped over her head. She was then rushed to emergency surgery to treat the lacerations around her neck and, of course, the swelling.
After this procedure, though, doctors discovered that Roxanne had an open wound around 95 per cent of her neck. Indeed, surgeons had to be careful not to rupture an exposed artery in her neck while removing the heavy chain.
Roxanne’s actual surgery, however, went well; but she wasn’t home and dry just yet. Certainly, the swelling to her head still posed a substantial risk to her health. Therefore, she was forced to sit with her head in an elevated position and given an intravenous drip.
Due to the severity of Roxanne’s abuse, though, Rescue Dogs Rock NYC set up a YouCaring crowdfunding page to help pay for her life-saving treatment. Naturally, her story touched hearts around the world, and within weeks the page surpassed its $13,000 goal.
“No animal should ever endure such awful things. Thank you for being good to that poor dog and treating her with care,” wrote one animal lover who donated.
After a while, the swelling on Roxanne’s head began to alleviate. In fact, in photographs taken after the swelling had subsided, she looked like a completely different dog.
The scar around her neck, meanwhile, began to heal, and Roxanne was soon transformed into a happy and healthy dog. Her speedy recovery even surprised staff at Rescue Dogs Rock NYC.
“Wowza, is all we can say,” one of them wrote in a Facebook post. “From almost being strangled by a six-pound chain with her artery exposed… this is truly a miracle.”
Speaking to InsideEdition.com, O’Sullivan added, “We were shocked she survived. She is recovering now and doing quite well!”
The rescue shelter also took the time to thank the public for their support and generous donations. “Thank you to every single person who supported Roxanne,” it wrote. “Miracles are possible if we come together and BELIEVE!”
Roxanne is still recovering and responding well to the love and care shown to her at the rescue center. In fact, she is currently looking for her forever home, where, hopefully, she can live happily ever after.
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