As Hurricane Florence barreled toward the Carolinas, Tammie Hedges knew that she had to do something.

With all the focus understandably on helping the people affected by the storm, Tammie decided to spend her time helping the pets who could have lost their lives to the hurricane. Unfortunately, this decision ended up leading to her arrest.

Hedges, a North Carolina resident, was arrested last Friday for providing care for 17 cats and 10 dogs for owners who had to evacuate due to the hurricane.

“The owners got to evacuate. They got to save themselves. But who’s going to save those animals? That’s what we did,” Hedges said. “We saved them.”

Hedges is the owner of Crazy’s Claws N Paws, a donation-based animal rescue center. When the storm hit, she was in the process of converting a warehouse space into a proper animal shelter, and she decided to use the building to keep the animals safe. However, she had not yet legally registered the building as a shelter, which led to her arrest.

“Our mission was to save as many animals from the flood that we could,” said Hedges. “We went through Hurricane Matthew and it was horrible. There were many preventable deaths.”

She went on to explain that an elderly couple came by to drop off 18 of the animals, some of which were sick and injured, just before the storm. Right after the hurricane passed, Hedges received a call from the Wayne County Animal Control about the animals.

She gave up the animals without a fight, but it did not end there.

“A few days later they called me in for questioning and yesterday they arrested me,” Hedges said.

She has since been hit with a litany of charges, including 12 counts of practicing medicine without a veterinary license. The non-profit took to Facebook to break down the charges:

“1 count of administering amoxicillin to Big Momma, 1 count of administering Tramadol to Big Momma, 3 counts of administering amoxicillin to a white Siamese cat, 3 counts of administering a topical antibiotic ointment (triple antibiotic from Dollar Tree) to a white Siamese cat, 3 counts of administering amoxicillin to a cat known as Sweet Pea, 1 count of administering amoxicillin to an unnamed black kitten, and 1 count of solicitation to commit a crime.”

“It was all over-the-counter stuff you could literally find at Dollar Tree,” said Raina Nyliram, an animal rescue volunteer who started a crowdfunding campaign for Hedges to help cover legal fees. “She couldn’t get the animals to the vet because the vet was closed. All the charges are bogus.”

Do you think these charges should be dropped? Let us know in the comments section.