When Jazz the dog’s morning walk took an unexpected turn, he stumbled across a surprise hero in the form of one of our train drivers.
On the morning of 3 April, Jazz was out for a walk with his owner when he spotted a deer and gave chase. The chase ended with Jazz stranded on the railway line between New Milton and Hinton Admiral, which carries trains travelling at speeds of up to 100 mph.
Driver Martin Crane was driving the 06:30 London Waterloo to Bournemouth service when he had to ‘paws’ to pick up his new pedigree chum, the wide-eyed labradoodle.
Martin explained:
“A driver going in the opposite direction flashed his lights to alert me to a problem, then the signalman contacted me and explained everything so I slowed down and caught sight of the dog. I stopped and coaxed the dog towards me. I got him back into the train and passed him over to the guard to look after until the next stop. I received a round of applause from the passengers which was nice! They didn’t seem too upset about the train being slightly delayed and we dropped Jazz off at Hinton Admiral where Carol Parkhurst in the ticket office contacted his grateful owners.”
Sandra Firth, Jazz’s owner said:
“It was half term week so I was at home with our kids Daniel and Georgia. My husband called and said Jazz had run off and he had been looking for him for around 35 minutes. We were just about to leave the house to go and help with the search when the phone rang and it was Carol at Hinton Admiral station saying she had Jazz with her. When we got there he was sitting with his paws on the counter! We are all so grateful for Carol and Martin’s help.”