Watch a firefighter save a dog's life by giving it CPR
Firefighters recently saved a dog in Romania using one of the most basic first aid techniques: CPR.
The dog had collapsed from smoke inhalation after a fire broke out Dec. 9 in a ground-floor apartment in Pitești, a city just west of Bucharest.
The dog's owner, a 51-year-old man, was seriously injured and quickly taken to the hospital, Romanian media reported. But the dog stayed behind, lying motionless on the curb.
That's when Costache Mugurel stepped in. The local firefighter gave the dog multiple chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation before slipping an oxygen mask over the dog's snout.
Photojournalist Costi Tudor captured the rescue in a Facebook video:
"Nobody gets left behind," Mugurel wrote in Romanian on his personal Facebook page.
His feed in recent days has filled with words of thanks, kissy face emojis and illustrations of overjoyed dogs from his grateful following.
The dog eventually began breathing again and was taken to a veterinary clinic. Tudor later shared Facebook a video of the dog lounging in a cage.
Reviving animals via CPR is extremely rare, according to veterinary experts.
Less than 6 percent of dogs and cats that suffer cardiac arrests in clinical settings survive to go home to their families, compared with more than 20 percent of human patients, the American Heart Associated estimated.
The city of Pitești has garnered other dog-related headlines in recent years, although past coverage wasn't exactly heart-warming.
Animal rights groups in 2013 accused city dwellers of abusing dogs in response to a Romanian law that called for capturing and euthanizing stray animals.
Maria Gallucci was a Science Reporter at Mashable. She was previously the energy and environment reporter at International Business Times; features editor of Makeshift magazine; clean economy reporter for InsideClimate News; and a correspondent in Mexico City until 2011. Maria holds degrees in journalism and Spanish from Ohio University's Honors Tutorial College.
