Johnny Hilbrant was looking forward to spending Memorial Day weekend in 2024 with his dogs and his family. Then, the unthinkable happened.
Hilbrant, 35, was driving up to his lake house in Maine alongside his dogs, Sammy, 2, and Nahla, 6, when he whipped out his phone to capture the moment.
As the car turned onto the dirt road, Hilbrant realized that Nahla knew where they were, so he took a video of her in the car, not realizing it would be his last.
He later shared the video on TikTok, captioned, "What's your favorite horror movie? Idk probably this video I have of my dog pulling up to the lake house in Maine. She was dead 90 seconds after this was taken." The video went viral, amassing over 19 million views.
Now, Hilbrant tells PEOPLE what happened that day and how he has learned to cope with the loss of his sweet Golden Retriever.
Hilbrant says he parked the car just one minute after taking the video, and they were greeted by his father-in-law, who was standing outside. Nahla ran over to his in-law, kissing him and jumping up and down in excitement.
"After greeting him, she did a 180 and sprinted across the driveway," Hilbrant shares. "Instead of running in a straight line, she veered to the right about a foot and into the back of our car. She hit her head with extreme force on the steel tailpipe of our car."
Hilbrant says she "stood up dazed, had a brief seizure, and then collapsed to the ground."
"We knew instantly that she was gone," he shares. "The next several minutes were a complete horror as we were helpless and knew we could not help Nahla."
The dog dad says it's still "unclear whether Nahla had a cardiac event that caused her to veer into the car or if she had lost her footing and hit her head."
"It was one of the most horrific things I have ever witnessed in person," he adds.
Hilbrant and his husband adopted Nahla in 2018 and considered her their "soul dog" because she was so well-behaved and fit right into their family. He decided to share her tragic death on TikTok to highlight the profound grief that is associated with pet loss.
TikTok, Hilbrant says, "has helped me a lot with grief."
"Seeing others share stories of loved ones or pets who have passed has been therapeutic for me," he says. "In 2022, I lost my twin sister unexpectedly, and #grieftok was a helpful place for me. Some of us who have lost people or pets want to talk about them. We don't want people to forget them."
"This is a big part of me now," he adds. "These losses have changed me. If I am to show up authentically on social media, I must share the hard stuff too."
Hilbrant says he also wanted to see if anyone else had "ever had something similar happen to their pet."
"There were a couple of people who have dealt with similar situations, and that made me feel a little less alone," he notes.
The same way other people were there for him, he hopes to be there for others going through the same grief.
"If you are grieving the loss of a pet, don't let anyone make you feel like you are overreacting. Losing your pet is brutal and made harder by the fact that society doesn't seem to treat it anywhere near the same way we treat losing a human," Hilbrant shares. "I find myself weeping over a photo of my sister and sobbing watching a video of Nahla playing on the beach."
Hilbrant shares his advice for other pet parents, noting that "you can never be too cautious or too careful."
"While we don't know if this was a health issue or a freak accident, it was a good reminder that anything can happen," he says. "Remaining vigilant and being concerned for your pet's safety doesn't make you a helicopter dog parent; it makes you smart."
"If this were indeed an accident, we would not have been able to prevent it," he adds. "Living with the reality that you are not always in control is very hard for me as someone who is always two steps ahead."