James "Jim" Trefz had recently rescued a dog from a shelter, a white terrier mix named Zulu. Trefz, an avid pilot who liked to fly his plane several times a week, took Zulu with him on every trip.
"He and the dog became instant companions," Trefz's friend John Amundsen (pictured) tells PEOPLEPets.com.
Last Thursday, tragedy struck, when shortly after taking off from the Winter Haven airport in Florida, the single-engine plane lost power and crashed into a tree. Trefz and his passenger, George Azize, both died, but incredibly, Zulu survived, without sustaining any injuries.
"We were stunned, to be honest. He's just a little, small white dog," says Amundsen, who runs Accelerated Flight Training at the airport. "We've been to too many wrecks over the years, and we were stunned to find the dog still alive."
Hardly anybody at the scene of the crash was thinking about Zulu given the two human lives at stake, but as members of the Polk County Sheriff's Department spoke with a group of reporters, pubic information officer Carrie Eleazer spotted a white dog crossing into the scene of the crash.
"I walked over to him thinking he belonged to one of the bystanders," Eleazer says. She checked his tag and confirmed that he had belonged to the pilot. "He wasn't scared. He didn't seem traumatized. He was just trotting around like he knew where he was, like he belonged there."
Eleazer handed Zulu over to Amundsen, who carried the dog back to the airport. He says that Zulu was searching for his owner, and at every sound of a plane, Zulu would run around looking for Trefz, who wouldn't be coming back for him. Amundsen then returned the dog to Trefz's girlfriend and 2-year-old daughter.
"It can't make up for everything that happened, but to me, he's the only good thing that came out of this," Eleazer says. "Without a broken bone on his body. It's just amazing. It's a tiny little miracle. They should change his name to Miracle."
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