Pet First Aid and Fire Safety
By: MJ REYNOLDS
Posted: Aug.07.07
Your pet is an important part of your life! By knowing basic pet
first aid, you could save your pet's life when an emergency
strikes. A fire emergency plan that includes your pet is another
good safety idea.
The American Red Cross offers a 4-hour Pet CPR & First Aid
course that comes with a pet first aid manual and first aid kit.
Pet owners learn how to perform rescue breathing and what to do
when a pet is chocking. They learn how to stop bleeding, splint
broken bones and how to treat a pet that has gone into shock. The
course material also covers preventing and handling poisoning
emergencies and how to deal with a sudden illness.
The class is also offered to groups, such as 4-H students and
firemen.
As a fire safety measure, pet owners are purchasing emergency
response decals that identify pets in the house, and they are
donating specialized pet rescue equipment to their local fire
districts.
When fire swept through a residential community in South Walton,
New Jersey people who could not get home from work in time to
rescue pets were telephoning neighbors, asking them to break into
their houses.
Thankfully, no animals were injured, but the level of concern about
family pets prompted community change. The South Walton Fire
District's website was updated to include information about pet
safety that offers free decals through the ASPCA (American Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.) Firefighters and law
enforcement officials recognize the decals that can be posted at
entryways with not only the number of animals, but also their
names.
The crisis also caused local Bark Park founder Spike Alfassa to
wonder, 'What if an animal was rescued but injured and needed
care?' Which lead to her donation of oxygen recovery masks for
animals to firefighters at South Walton's Station 3. The
specialized pet rescue masks were purchased from the non-profit
organization H.E.L.P. Animals. The organization sells
SurgiVet's Muculloch Medical Animal Recovery Masks for $55. The
set includes three different sized cone-shaped masks that can be
used with any sized animal from a tiny bird to a Saint Bernard,
according to product information.
'Emergency personnel had to be inventive to handle animal
rescues before they had the special equipment,' said Ryan
Crawford, the Emergency Medical Services' Division Chief for
South Walton.
Because most pets are even smaller than children, they are more
susceptible to smoke inhalation. Firemen often used their own
oxygen devices to help administer aid, trying to save family
pets.
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