After 22 days on the tarmac at one of many world’s busiest airports, Maia, a Chihuahua combine, is the ultimate survivor. She was discovered final weekend after a Good Samaritan introduced the three-week saga to an finish.
Maia and her proprietor, Paula Rodriguez, received separated on their method to San Francisco from the Dominican Republic. During a cease in Atlanta, Rodriguez needed to spend the night time in a detention heart as a result of she did not have the correct paperwork to enter the United States.
Since pets aren’t allowed within the detention heart, Delta Air Lines supplied to take care of Maia in a single day, after she flew within the cabin on a Delta flight. But through the switch, Maia escaped her zipped service and ran onto the lively runway. She was carrying a seashell collar that later helped establish her.
Rodriguez turned to social media for assist and posted in a Facebook group referred to as “Atlanta Area Lost and Found Pets.”
Robin Allgood, a volunteer pet rescuer, noticed the plea and took issues into her personal palms. She positioned indicators across the airport, hoping to find Maia, however after two weeks misplaced hope.
“I truthfully gave her a 1% probability of nonetheless being on that property,” Allgood mentioned.
Then, a FedEx worker named Al Lewis, who had seen Allgood’s indicators, reported a sighting. Rodriguez rushed to the FedEx facility on the airport, the place workers have been skeptical.
“They have been me like, ‘Really woman?'” Rodriguez mentioned. But she insisted the canine was on their property.
She mentioned FedEx safety instructed her she wanted to talk with Delta, so she drove to the Delta terminal the place she mentioned she was instructed she could not get clearance since they did not have proof the canine was there. Allgood broke into tears and went again to FedEx, the place she mentioned she was instructed, “Delta misplaced the Dog. It’s Delta’s downside.”
Allgood mentioned she circled the FedEx facility for practically three hours on the lookout for Maia. Her persistence led her to Norris Champion, a FedEx supervisor who organized a search social gathering. About an hour later, they made a breakthrough: Maia was discovered. He despatched Allgood an image of the canine — and noticed the seashells on her collar.
“I used to be like, ‘It’s her, it is her, it is her!'” Allgood mentioned.
Officials escorted Allgood onto the tarmac to retrieve Maia, who, although nonetheless shaken, was secure.
“She was so panicked. She was trembling so dangerous, and I might actually see her pulse in her neck,” Allgood mentioned.
“I’m simply so completely happy that I received her,” she mentioned.
In all, Allgood’s search after she received the decision from Lewis had lasted practically 24 hours.
The subsequent day, Delta flew Rodriguez’s mom to Atlanta for a heartwarming reunion. Maia, dehydrated and seven kilos thinner however in any other case okay, has since returned to the Dominican Republic, the place she is again within the loving arms of Rodriguez.
Delta beforehand instructed CBS News that the specifics of how and why the canine went lacking have been nonetheless being investigated. PETA is splitting a $5,000 reward between Allgood and the 5 FedEx employees who helped her discover Maia.
