From FOX 4 News Dallas-Fort Worth · Peyton Yager · · 1m 20s
Shot four times, he only worried about his dog
A Dallas man took four bullets on a late-night walk, and a stranger from Mesquite made sure he got his dog back.
In brief
A Dallas man took four bullets on a late-night walk, and a stranger from Mesquite made sure he got his dog back. Joshua Painter survived a random shooting in Pleasant Grove, and a stranger who saw the story on the news reunited him with his dog Bella. Originally reported by FOX 4 News Dallas-Fort Worth.
A walk that turned violent
Joshua Painter was walking his dog Bella through Pleasant Grove just before 11 p.m. on Aug. 31 when a stranger opened fire and hit him four times.
His first thought was Bella
Painter hit the pavement and immediately tried to pull his dog toward him instead of covering himself.
“I dropped, and I rolled and tried to get her up to me”
A question, then gunfire
Police say 18-year-old David Gabriel Ramirez had been drinking and had left his house about a mile away, hostile and carrying a handgun.
“He said, 'do you want to die today'? I said, 'dude, take me off your script' and I kept walking”
She never left his side
Cell phone video from the scene shows Painter bleeding on the side of Prairie Creek Road with Bella standing right there beside him.
A stranger from Mesquite
Charlee Croker saw the story, started calling Dallas hospitals to find him, then picked him up from Parkland and drove him to the animal shelter for Bella.
“He was like, can you help me get my dog back? I was hooked. I am a dog mom”
Together, but unsettled
Croker also put Painter up in a hotel for the weekend. What comes next for him is unclear, and the man arrested that night has already bonded out.
“I'm so thankful I got my dog back”
What to remember
Joshua Painter survived a random shooting in Pleasant Grove, and a stranger who saw the story on the news reunited him with his dog Bella.
