Astoria man reunited with dog after devastating crash

PORTLAND Ore. (KPTV) – An Astoria man is in the hospital recovering from live-altering injuries after hitting a patch of black ice on Highway 26, Monday night.

During the incredible rescue by first responders to get the man life-flighted to OHSU, his dog went missing but his family was determined to find her so that “he would have a fighting chance.”

Matthew Weatherman was on his way back to Astoria from Portland Monday morning when he fish-tailed on an icy patch, flying off the road and landing sideways with his truck wrapped around a tree.

“Matthew had been airlifted to the hospital,” his mom, Colleen Carette said sitting next to her partner and Matthew’s other mom, Susan Carette. “Fractured pelvis. Five fractured ribs, a collapsed lung, lacerated spleen, he had gotten 16 units of blood in the ER and he was stable, but the doctor wanted to talk to me about going into surgery and giving permission for anesthesia, talk to us. We are the moms.”

“We’re known as ‘the moms’ with all his friends, we’re the moms,” Susan explained.

‘The moms’ dropped everything to be with their son who was sedated and intubated, but conscious. That’s when their attention diverted to Bravery, Matthew’s beloved dog they explained they had to find if they wanted their son to survive.

“Here he is helpless. He kept trying to get up. I know he was trying to go find her. He kept trying to find her and we knew [he was trying to say] ‘Where’s Bravery’ but he couldn’t,” Susan said.

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What Matthew couldn’t do, his loved ones did for him. Friends and family went back to the scene of the crash on Highway 26 near Banks, Oregon, to search for Bravery with the help of Waggin’ Tails Search and Rescue.

“We searched for three and a half hours or so,” Susan said.

While the search was long and draining, the moms never gave up hope and eventually, Bravery appeared. However, she quickly scampered back into the woods after getting spooked. That’s when the mom’s dog, Daisy came into play, going down into the steep ravine with Susan on a mission to retrieve Bravery.

“Search and rescue said not to call our Bravery’s name, nothing like that, they said just have a conversation and I did. I would tell Daisy ‘Where’s Bravery, where’s the puppy, do you hear the puppy?’ So, we did that for quite some time and then I heard a whimper, and I looked, and I saw these little black eyes and this little snout in the bushes. I would not have seen her if she hadn’t alerted me,” Susan said.

Ensuring not to spook Bravery, Susan let Daisy go get her. She said it was a simple sniff of her ear that made Bravery come out from the bushes, and eventually into Susan’s arms.

“She was shaking, she was so scared,” Susan said.

However, once she got a hold of Daisy, Susan knew the hard part would be getting back up the steep ravine, she had just used branches and trees, to scale down.

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“I mean it was just straight up so we followed Daisy up, we got almost eight feet to the end and Daisy had already made it to the top and I’m looking, and I realize I can’t get up all the way. So, Kimber and Jill from the search and rescue, they got their catch pole and put it out to me and I cinched my hand around it and they pulled me up the hill,” Susan remembered.

Once Bravery was reunited with the people who love her dad so much, it was time to be reunited with him, and she was just a short time later in OHSU’s ICU.

“Bravery came and got to smell him and then lick him and Matthew was just so happy. You could just feel the energy emanating in the room,” Colleen said.

“When he was young, we taught our sons ‘I love you’ is [signaling with your hand,] one, four, three.  We had gotten there before Bravery and we told him ‘Bravery’s coming, we found her,’ and all he could do was signal with his hand ‘I love you’ over and over and tears were coming off of him,” Susan added.

That was the moment the moms knew, their son would be just fine.

“The next day after the accident, we find her and she’s there [with him]. Now we know that he has a fighting chance,” Susan said.

A chance that will lead to a long and hard recovery, but a chance nonetheless, and it was all thanks to a little dog named Bravery, and the people and dog who were brave enough to find her.

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