CANINE-NINE-NINE
Builder signs up for first aid course – and finds his new skills save the day while out walking his dog...
WHEN Colin Maclean signed up for a first aid course at work, he never imagined his first patient would be his pet dog. Yet the 52-year-old builder was able to put his skills to amazing use – by resuscitating his beloved Alsatian Zak. On a morning walk near his home outside Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, last weekend, the dog was running through the newly fallen snow – something he’d never seen before – and biting mouthfuls of the white powder from the ground. But all of a sudden the four-year-old dog keeled over. Alarmed, Colin rushed to the animal’s side, but he could find no signs of life – Zak’s breathing had stopped and he was blank-eyed and unresponsive. In desperation, Colin decided to adapt the CPR techniques he had learned on his first aid course to try to save his stricken pet. He put his palms on the ribs above Zak’s heart and started to perform rapid chest compressions.
The first cycle of pushing down on the dog’s heart did nothing. After pausing for a few seconds, he tried again. Again, there was no result.
Halfway through a third cycle of compressions, however, Zak suddenly twitched backed to life.
Colin described the dramatic walkies that could have been Zak’s last.
He said: “I wish I could say I was calm giving him CPR, but I was in total shock. I had to adapt the CPR technique to suit the dog.
“Normally you would put a human on their back and apply CPR with the kiss of life.
“But Zak was lying in such a way on his side that I decided it was best not to move him.
“I couldn’t do rescue breaths because a dog’s mouth goes so much further around its head than a person’s does. I wouldn’t have been able to seal his mouth with mine from the side.
“I would have kept the compressions going until I keeled over if I had had to. I wouldn’t have given up on Zak.”
When the third set of compressions finally did the trick, Colin rushed Zak to the vet.
He said: “The vet gave Zak a shot of adrenaline and told me that when a dog gets excited playing in the snow it can bring on a heart attack.”
Happily, Zak has now made a full recovery and is enjoying his walks again as if nothing had happened.
Colin added: “I never thought that I would be applying CPR to a dog, but a heart’s a heart. You never know who you will be trying to save.”