Photo: Crazys Claws N Paws/Facebook
A North Carolina woman who says she sheltered more than two dozen cats and dogs left behind as Hurricane Florence swept across the East Coast was arrested for allegedly giving the animals unlicensed medical care, PEOPLE confirms.
Tammie Hedges was taken into custody on Friday and faces a dozen charges of practicing or attempting veterinary medicine without a license as well as one count of soliciting a schedule four controlled substance, according to officials in Wayne County.
TheGoldsboro News-Argusreportedthat Hedges had taken in 27 cats and dogs and was using a warehouse as a temporary shelter.
Florencemade landfall in North Carolinaon Sept. 14. The storm has sincekilled more than three dozen peopleand soaked the Carolinas with rain.
“We were trying to help abandoned animals [after their owners evacuated]. … A group of us got together to do something to help those animals, is why we opened our building to them — so they’d have a safe dry place to go until their owners returned to get them,” Hedges told the paper.
“I had not gone out and gotten any animals,” she said, “but a couple of independent rescuers had gotten some from flooded areas and brought them to me.”
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Hedges is out on bond and will appear in court in October. She does not have an attorney on file who could comment on her behalf and has not entered a plea. Efforts to reach her directly were unsuccessful.
Accordingto a statement from her rescue shelter, Crazy’s Claws N’ Paws, Hedges’ charges are connected with allegations she administered the antibiotic amoxicillin, the painkiller Tramadol and an over-the-counter topical antibiotic ointment to the animals.
Ina second post, the shelter wrote that “there is no proof that any of this was given.”
Crazys Claws N Paws/Facebook
A county spokesman tells PEOPLE he cannot elaborate on the charges, but he stressed that they arose from the alleged unlicensed medical care and not the operation of a temporary shelter.
Hedges has said she acted with good intentions in a bad situation.
Animal control reached out to her once the storm had left the area, Hedges said.
“The owners got to evacuate. They got to save themselves. But who’s going to save those animals?” she explained. “That’s what we did. We saved them.”
Hedges also took issue with the county putting itself between the pets and their families. “If they can’t find the owners, the pets went from a safe place to a kill shelter,” she said, according toUSA Today.
On the shelter’s Facebook page, a volunteer and shelter board member spoke out in defense of Hedges with a post Friday, writing that “she did what she needed to at that time til she could reach a vet.”
“She had two cats come in severely sick and an injured dog,” the volunteer wrote. “Was she suppose to let the cats spread the germs and infect everyone else? And was she suppose to let the dog suffer?”
source: people.com
