These animals owe their lives to this homeless hero.
Georgia man Keith Walker, 53, was en route to take his pit bull, Bravo, for a walk when he saw the shelter the pooch sleeps at was on fire.
A kitchen fire had engulfed Atlanta’s W-Underdogs shelter in flames. The animals inside would likely have met a different fate on Dec. 18 had Walker not immediately jumped into action.
“I was nervous as hell, I’m not going to lie. I was really scared to go in there with all that smoke — but God put me there to save those animals,” Walker, who has been homeless since he was just 13, told CNN.
“If you love a dog, you can love anyone in the world. My dog is my best friend, and I wouldn’t be here without him, so I knew I had to save all those other dogs.”
By moving fast and adeptly, Walker was able to rescue all six dogs and 10 cats inside the burning facility, which was completely destroyed by the flames.
“He is my guardian angel,” W-Underdogs founder Grace Hamlin told the outlet. “Even the firefighters didn’t want to handle the dogs. They called animal control, but Keith was already in the building pulling out the cats and dogs until they were all safe.”
Hamlin had been letting Walker keep Bravo at the shelter every night, but had no way to know the man would one day save her entire flock — and just a week ahead of W-Underdogs’ move to a new Atlanta facility, where the saved animals now live.
“I can’t thank him enough for saving my animals,” Hamlin said, posting a photo of Walker with an emotional caption to W-Underdogs’ Instagram. “I’m still in disbelief, because I’ve been around a fire and I know how fast they flare up. He is my hero.”
