A Montgomery County firefighter has been given a month’s disability leave because she became depressed after her search-and-rescue dog suffered a career-ending injury, according to court records and her attorney.
County firefighter Laura Kane was on duty when her dog, Frankie, ran away in 2005. When the dog came back, it had a limp. Kane took the dog to a veterinarian, who said the dog had a dislocated hip and could no longer work as a search-and-rescue dog, court records show.
Kane, whose name was Laura Huggins at the time, asked her supervisors if she could take a sick day on June 24, saying she didn’t think she could do her job that day, according to court records.
“I was a mess because my heart and soul was in this dog, to train her,” Kane said in court records. “She is my best friend, my partner.”
Some Montgomery County firefighters train search dogs as part of a Federal Emergency Management Agency-sponsored urban search-and-rescue team, according to a department spokesman.
Kane said her supervisors refused her request and were “very rough” on her. “They did not provide any detailed explanation of why could not go home,” she said.
Kane’s lawyer, Kenneth Berman, said Frankie’s injury led to Kane’s depression, which eventually required her to take a month off.
Her salary at the time was $955.07 a week, according to court records.
Two years after her dog’s injury, Kane filed a claim with the Maryland Workers’ Compensation Commission, which ordered the county to pay Kane’s medical expenses and reserved the right to consider her case in the future if a permanent disability claim were filed.
Reached by phone, Kane said she filed the workers’ compensation claim not because of the injury to the dog, but because of how she was treated by her supervisors.
“I questioned authority and they did not like that,” Kane said in a hearing before the commission.
A lawyer for the county declined to comment about the case. The county had appealed the ruling in Montgomery Circuit Court but settled with Kane earlier this year.
Though details of the settlement were not disclosed, Berman said the county agreed to change its designation of the month Kane took off from sick leave to disability leave.
He added that Kane’s illness was “not unique” among public safety officials who work with dogs.
“They become extremely attached to the dogs they work with,” he said, adding that he did not know where Frankie was currently.
