Fireman’s mouth-tosnout CPR saves dog
LOS ANGELES: California firefighters, who spent 20 minutes performing mouth-to-snout resuscitation on a dog they rescued from a burning apartment, are being hailed as heroes.
The dog’s owner, Crystal Lamirande, 35, had just returned to her Santa Monica apartment on Tuesday when a neighbour yelled there was a fire.
Lamirande frantically tried to save her dog, a 10-year-old Bichon Frise/Shih Tzu named Nalu, but the smoke was too thick for her to go inside, she said on Thursday.
Moments later, firefighters arrived and Lamirande told them her dog was trapped inside.
That’s when firefighter Andrew Klein sprang into action, getting on all fours to search the apartment for Nalu as another firefighter sprayed water to keep the flames at bay. Klein found the unconscious dog a few feet from the fire in a bedroom.
“He was lifeless. I picked him up and ran out of the apartment,” said Klein.
As Lamirande knelt nearby crying, Klein and his crew spent the next 20 minutes working on reviving the dog using oxygen, CPR and what’s known as mouth-tosnout resuscitation.
Video posted on Facebook shows Klein and another firefighter patting Nalu’s belly as he starts breathing again with the help of oxygen.
Lamirande said she couldn’t believe how much time the firefighters took to save her dog.
She said Nalu spent the next 24 hours recovering in an oxygen chamber and was almost back to his normal self again on Thursday.
Klein, a self-described dog lover, said he felt proud of the outcome.
“He was essentially dead, so to see him kissing people and walking around wagging his tail was definitely a good feeling,” he said.