A man was in the right place at the right time to save a dog hanging from an electrical cord near a highway overpass.

When David Friedman spotted the dog near the I-70 overpass, he was about to head to Independence, Missouri.

“I saw what seemed like a dog that was being hung over the side of some kind of power box. The cord was definitely strangling him,” Fredman told Fox4 KC. “His feet were touching the bottom, but they were barely touching the bottom. He was trying to whip his head left and right but could barely move it.” Fredman immediately called 911 then grabbed a knife to chop the dog free. The instant he cut the dog free, he noticed the dog was trying to breathe. He couldn’t walk either, but after he settled the dog down he brought him to KC Pet Project.

They discovered that the dog had a microchip implanted and named it Max. Its owner, Dee Vaughn, has been trying to find it. Vaughan received a call just two hours after he reported that his dog was missing, which made him breathe a sigh of relief, but when he heard what had happened to his 16-year-old dog, he was very upset. It’s unclear how Max got into the predicament. Was it an accident or did someone purposely try to hang Max? Vaughn said there’s no way his senior dog could have walked the mile to where he was found.

But he told the news station that surveillance cameras might reveal what happened to his dog. Certainly, the electrical cord around Max’s neck points to the suspicious activity. Vaughn said he has called police and was told to contact animal control, which he plans to do.

But he’s just gratified that Max is home safe because of Fredman. He had an opportunity to thank Fredman face to face and told him, “Thank you, David, so much. You stopped what you were doing to show around and save my dog’s life.”