The Pet Tree House - Where Pets Are Family Too : A Medical Doctor Leaves 9 Dogs In Hot Car, All Die While He Makes Rounds At Hospital The Pet Tree House - Where Pets Are Family Too : A Medical Doctor Leaves 9 Dogs In Hot Car, All Die While He Makes Rounds At Hospital

Thursday, August 14, 2014

A Medical Doctor Leaves 9 Dogs In Hot Car, All Die While He Makes Rounds At Hospital


A doctor in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina left nine dogs in a hot car while he made rounds at the hospital on Monday. The 64-year-old is charged with animal cruelty and is set on $90,000 bond.

Dr. Charles Allen Bickerstaff was making rounds at one of the hospitals he works for when his dogs died. All nine were crammed into five crates altogether in the back of Bickerstaff’s Ford Explorer. When he returned to his SUV, he noticed the dogs were unresponsive so he took them to Mt. Pleasant Emergency Hospital.

A staff member at the vet’s office called 911 after she saw the animals.

She said:

“This is a medical doctor. This is not acceptable. He had asked, ‘So, leaving the windows open is not adequate?’ No. Not when they’re in kennels and they have full coats, and you have them two by two in each kennel.”

The nine dogs left in the hot vehicle were Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. According to court documents, the dogs are identified as Money, Lucinda, Drayton, Madeline, Shelby, Katie, Freddie, and Willis. Their ages ranged from 5 months to 9 years, the document reveals. The doctor left the dogs inside the vehicle for three hours.

Police used records from the vet’s office to get information on Dr. Bickeroff. He’s a gastroenterologist and is a physician for several hospitals that include Bon Secours St. Francis Xavier Hospital and East Cooper Medical Center, according to ABC 4 Charleston. The allegedly negligent doctor was questioned by police Monday night and arrested on Wednesday.

When Dr. Sarah Boyd, director of shelter health and wellness at Charleston Animal Society, learned of the animals’ terrible fate, she explained how hard it is for dogs to be inside hot cars.

Dr. Boyd said:

“The temperature inside of a car during spring and summer and early fall in South Carolina will rise so much, that for a dog, seconds can cost them their life.”

News 2 mentions that the affidavit says during the time Dr. Bickeroff was at the hospital, the temperatures outside went from 73 degrees to 82 degrees; the heat index was around 91 degrees.

Another tragedy of multiple dogs in a hot car occurred when four pit bulls were left in the back of a man’s car in Sacramento. As reported on The Inquisitr, all four dogs died from heat exposure. One pit bull was rescued alive, but died the next day due to severe injuries to her internal organs.

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