Her dog died after 20 minutes in a hot car. Columbia woman faces charges in Horry County
A dog died after being trapped in a car amid 95-degree weather in the Tanger Outlets parking lot outside of the Nike store in Myrtle Beach, Horry County Police say.
Billie McKie, 41, of Columbia told police that she tried to park in the shade and that she left a window cracked “while she went to do her shopping,” the incident report read. She also said the dog was in the car for “15-20 minutes.”
The incident occurred at about 1 p.m. on Sunday, June 26 and by the time the responding officer arrived, McKie and a bystander had already gotten the dog out of the vehicle, but the dog was “losing conscious and panting heavily,” according to the incident report.
The dog was transported to the nearby VCA Palmetto Animal Hospital where the dog was pronounced deceased after the doctor said that the dog was “untreatable as the dog’s inside was already too overheated,” the report read.
The report also read that McKie was arrested and was “cooperative and understood she made a bad decision.”
Details on the breed and age of the dog is not clear at this time.
Mikayla Moscov, public information officer for Horry County government, said that McKie is being charged under the county ordinance for animal care and treatment.
In response to this incident, the Horry County Animal Center wrote in a Facebook post, “Under the Horry County ordinance for animal care and treatment, it is unlawful to subject an animal to extreme temperatures and conditions. ... The temperature outside the car that day was 95 degrees. We can only imagine how hot it was inside. A dog is dead due to a poor decision, and there is no changing that.”
