Man Saves Dog With Mouth-To-Snout Resuscitation

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) _ Lucy was drowning and turning blue, so Randy Gurchin recalled his Air Force training on mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. <br/><br/>It didn't matter that Lucy is a 10-month-old English

Saturday, March 10th 2007, 3:23 pm

By: News On 6

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) _ Lucy was drowning and turning blue, so Randy Gurchin recalled his Air Force training on mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

It didn't matter that Lucy is a 10-month-old English bulldog, because he and Lucy are ``best buddies.''

``Once you get a pet, it's truly part of your family,'' he said. ``You just tend to do whatever it takes to save their life.''

Lucy had jumped into a partly frozen lake in pursuit of ducks and geese, but the water was too cold for her.

When Gurchin edged onto the ice and pulled Lucy out of the water, she was unresponsive and her face and paws were blue.

He closed her mouth, put his mouth over her nose, breathed air into her lungs and pushed on her chest, and after about a minute she began shallow breaths.

He drove her to a veterinary clinic, where she was immersed in warm water, given injections and placed in an oxygen tent.

By Friday, a week after her ordeal, Lucy was back to normal, said Gurchin, a pilot who retired from the Air Force two years ago.