When 12,000 People Needed Help, One Dog Was Their Only Chance

Do you love incredible stories of animals saving human lives? Well, then this one will definitely amaze you. In the fall of 1924, Curtis Welch, the only doctor of the port town of Nome in Alaska, raised the alarm: there was too little of the cure for a sudden illness striking the town. Dr. Welch ordered an additional batch and was hoping to receive it before winter because otherwise the town would be locked out by ice for 8 months. But the ship with the cure didn’t make it in time, and the town had no choice but to wait until spring.

There were no signs of an outbreak in Nome, but Dr. Welch was still beside himself for some reason. In December, he took in several patients with a sore throat, and although he ruled out the illness, his suspicions grew with every passing day. Until finally, in January 1925, they turned out to be correct: he officially diagnosed the first case. Nome was home to about 2,000 people, but 10,000 more lived in the surrounding area, all at risk of contracting the illness. Over a million units of the cure were found across the country and shipped to Alaska. But the real challenge was to get them to Nome itself...