State trooper gets wayward dog, Christmas presents back to crash victims

A Minnesota state trooper saved the day for a college student involved in a crash Friday morning when he found her dog after it bolted from the scene and got the two back together.

And that was not his only rescue of the day.

Not long after Sgt. Jesse Grabow got the pooch into safe arms, he retrieved Christmas presents for a family that had been in a separate crash and left the gifts behind.

"We just serve," said Grabow, who works in the patrol's northwestern Minnesota district. "That is what is interesting about this job. You never know what is going to come across."

Grabow's morning started when he was called to a two-vehicle wreck on eastbound Interstate 94 near Rothsay, Minn. Sequoia Krell, a student at the University of North Dakota, was on her way home for the holidays when she spun out on an icy freeway and her vehicle was hit by a semitrailer truck just after 8 a.m., Grabow said.

Both Krell and the truck driver were OK, but her car took some "serious damage," Grabow said.

In all the commotion, Krell's dog, Roo, got loose and ran off into the snow-covered countryside.

Using his intuition and asking himself where he'd run to if he were a dog, Grabow followed fresh tracks that led in the direction of a nearby farmhouse. That is where he spotted Roo trotting down a gravel road.

Usually he carries dog treats in his squad for situations just like this, but on Friday he was fresh out. After a cat-and-mouse game, Grabow finally opened the backdoor of his squad and coaxed the dog in.

Grabow took the shivering pooch, who he described as "pretty cute," to a truck stop where Krell was waiting.

"There were happy tears," Grabow said. "Sometimes we can't find the pets. It's nice when we can find the animal and reunite them."

Back on the road, Grabow was called to another crash in the same area. A family heading from North Dakota to Wisconsin rolled their vehicle. While at the crash scene, Grabow noticed that a woman who was in the vehicle was holding her elbow. Grabow took her to a clinic for treatment.

While there, she mentioned that she left Christmas presents in the overturned vehicle. Grabow went back to the scene, recovered them and returned them to the family.

"We see so many bad things out here, it's crazy," Grabow said. "It's nice to have a good ending."

Tim Harlow • 612-673-7768