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| Hello Friend,
Welcome to the Friday.
This is one skill you should know...CPR
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Dog lover saves drowning pit bull with CPR in Prospect Park
She wasn’t going to let a drowning dog die.
A dog lover saved an aging pit bull who was pulled from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park Lake Thursday — by administering “mouth-to-snout” resuscitation on the soggy pooch.
“She was soaking wet. She smelled like a wet dog, and was dirty from being pulled from the water and onto the dirt. Her nose was wet and cold,” Lower East Side resident Holly DeRito told The Post Friday.
“All I was doing was thinking that if this was my dog, imagine how bad I would feel. I just needed to get some life into her, because my dogs are my life, they’re my family.”
DeRito, 46, said the ordeal began when she was at the green space with her Chihuahuas, Angelina and Ludwig, and people began screaming in panic.
“I heard somebody say, ‘Call 911!’ and saw someone pulling this dog out of the water and saying, ‘She’s not breathing!’ ” she recalled. “The owners were hysterical and saying, ‘No, no, no, please, no!’ ”
DeRito sprang into action after the man who rescued the canine — a 12-year-old female named Bella — used a Heimlich maneuver to pump out its lungs.
“She was completely limp, completely unresponsive,” DeRito said. “He did compressions and I started breathing into her nose — cupping the mouth shut and breathing into the nostrils.”
The dog’s tongue “was turning blue” and “I was starting to think she wasn’t going to make it,” said DeRito, who runs a nonprofit dog-fostering operation called Waggytail Rescue.
As the rescuers frantically performed canine CPR, someone called 911 but was told, “This isn’t emergency. Call 311,” DeRito said.
“I knew it was up to us to save her,” she said.
“I started putting my hand to her mouth and listen to see if she was breathing, and finally she took a little breath and coughed a little bit and started breathing.”
Bella spent about 10 minutes recovering from the ordeal before her owners — a man and a woman in their 30s — got her up and took her to a vet.
DeRito said she gave the couple her phone number, but hasn’t heard back.
Still, she didn’t have a moment’s hesitation before getting up close and personal with Bella.
“The ickiness was discarded from my mind, because a little bit of icky doesn’t matter when you’re trying to save a life,” she said. |
| | Essential First Aid: CPR
Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation is the most important first aid technique that every pet owner should be comfortable with. Chances are that you will never have to use it, but it will save your pet’s life if a ball is lodged in his airway.
This section describes the basic technique. This is also covered in my pet first aid manual, Pet First Aid Secrets: Complete Canine And Feline First Aid Manual, but it is included here because of its importance. For a demonstration and more thorough description, refer to my video: Pet CPR.
There are some very basic steps:
1.Assess responsiveness
2.Establish a patent airway
3.Perform rescue breathing
4.Cardiac massage – establishing circulation
STEP 1: RESPONSIVENESS
The first step is making sure that your pet is truly unresponsive.
1.CHECK his breathing by placing your hand in front of his mouth and nose.
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| | 2.CHECK for his heartbeat by placing your ear against the left side of his chest – this is the area where his left elbow touches his chest, immediately behind his left armpit.
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| | STEP 2: AIRWAY
The second step in CPR is obtaining a patent airway.
1.PULL the tongue out of your pet’s mouth, but be careful to not get bitten.
2.STRAIGHTEN the neck by moving the head to be in line with the neck.
DO NOT HYPEREXTEND IN CASES OF NECK TRAUMA.
3.PERFORM two rescue breaths, by closing the mouth and performing mouth to nose ventilations. IF they continue, then proceed to STEP 3, BREATHING.
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| | If there are no breaths, then look into the mouth.
4.VISIBLY inspect the mouth and look down the throat for a foreign body. If you see something, reach into the airway and remove it.
5.IF the airway is still not open, attempt HEIMLICH (shown in following steps).
6.TURN your pet upside down, with back against your chest.
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| | 7.WITH both arms, give sharp thrusts to the abdomen.
8.AFTER 5 thrusts, stop and check to see if the object is visible in the airway. If so remove it and give 2 mouth-to-nose rescue breaths. If the breaths do not go in, repeat HEIMLICH.
STEP 3: BREATHING
After achieving a patent airway, perform RESCUE BREATHING.
1.CLOSE your pet’s mouth and breathe directly into his nose until his chest expands. If the chest does not expand then go back to STEP 2 – AIRWAY.
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| | 2.VENTILATE at 8 breaths per minute. 2 BREATHS every 15 seconds.
3.PROCEED to STEP 4 – CIRCULATION
STEP 4: CIRCULATION
1.ENSURE there are no major points of bleeding. Control as necessary.
2.GENTLY lay your pet on his right side.
3.LOCATE the heart, which is found on the lower half of the chest on the left side, behind the elbow of the front left leg. Place one hand below the heart to support the chest; place the other hand over the heart.
4.COMPRESS the chest 30 times followed by 2 rescue breaths. 4 compressions every 2 seconds. Compress the chest 1/2 inch for small pets and 1 1/2 inches for large pets.
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| 5. EVERY 30 times follow up with 2 rescue breaths.
Continue heart massage compressions and the rescue breathing until you hear a heartbeat and feel regular breathing.
Once your pet is breathing and his heart is beating, call your veterinarian immediately.
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| Heal Your Pet At Home!
Best Wishes,
Dr Andrew Jones, DVM |
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P.S. A few additional points here.
In my opinion every pet owner should be comfortable with basic dog and cat First Aid.
It's the responsible thing to do- and you WILL need it at some point.
You need to practice.
Get up to speed on ALL the common dog and cat emergencies with Pet First Aid Secrets: Complete Canine And Feline First Aid Manual is a 275 page manual (in e-book/digital format) on Essential Pet First Aid Skills for Dog and Cat Owners. Covers 64 First Aid situations - what to look for and what you can do to help in an emergency situation. Comes in ePub (iOS), Kindle and PDF (PC/laptop) formats.
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| DISCLAIMER: This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace the advice of your own veterinarian. Dr Andrew Jones resigned from the College of Veterinarians of B.C. effective December 1 2010, meaning he cannot answer specific questions about your pet's medical issues or make specific medical recommendations for your pet.
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