A routine drive to work took an unexpected turn for David Fredman when he spotted a distressed dog near a highway overpass in Independence, MO. The dog was precariously hanging by an electrical cord over the side of a power box, struggling for his life.

“I saw what looked like a dog that was being hung over the side of some sort of power box. The cord was definitely strangling him,” Fredman shared with Fox4 KC. “His feet were touching the ground, but they were barely touching the ground. He was trying to whip his head left and right but could barely move it.”

In a race against time, Fredman dialed 911 and rushed to the dog’s aid with a knife: “As soon as I cut him down, he couldn’t breathe. He was trying to breathe. I tried to get him to walk. He couldn’t walk,” Fredman recounted.

The rescued dog was taken to the KC Pet Project, where they discovered he was microchipped. The chip led them to the owner, Dee Vaughn, who had reported his dog missing just two hours earlier.

“Two hours later there was a phone call came in asking if I was missing my dog,” Dee Vaughn said, recounting the unexpected call.

The circumstances of the event remain unclear. Was it an accident, or an act of foul play? Vaughn stated that it was impossible for his senior dog to have wandered a mile away from their house to the place where he was found entangled in the cord. Whatever the case may be, the dog’s safe return home was a result of Fredman’s quick thinking and brave intervention.