A black Labrador Retriever named Bear is being hailed as a hero today after saving a toddler’s life.
When little 14-month-old Stanley fell into his family’s backyard pool last Sunday, it was Bear who reached the drowning boy first.
Stanley’s mother and Bear’s owner, resident Patricia Drauch of Marcellus, Mich., explains that if it weren’t for Bear’s quick actions, her young son might not have survived the accident.
“Stanley usually follows us around and I went into the garage to put away some stuff and came back out,” says Drauch, describing what happened. “Just in a moment he wasn’t behind me.”
Drauch, as if by instinct, ran to the backyard. To her horror, Stanley had wandered into the pool. But lucky for the Drauch family, their loyal black Lab had jumped into the water behind the toddler and attempted to push little Stanley to the top of the water.
“Bear put his back underneath Stanley’s back to keep him from going under any farther,” Drauch explains.
As Drauch pulled Stanley from the pool, she says that the toddler wasn’t breathing, his skin turning blue. “I was so scared,” Drauch says,” I grabbed him out, put him on his side, for the life of me I couldn’t remember CPR.”
When she couldn’t get cell phone service to dial 911, Drauch frantically drove her son to the Marcellus Fire Department for help. Firefighters immediately went to work trying to help the unconscious Stanley.
“They checked him out, they didn’t hear any fluids in his lungs,” explains Drauch. Miraculously, Stanley came to as the firefighters looked him over. “He was starting to cry, he was responding to them,” Drauch says. They rushed Stanley to the hospital and the boy was released later that day.
Patricia Drauch knows that Bear helped save Stanley’s life. “He’s my hero,” she says of the loving Lab. “I don’t know where I’d be if Bear didn’t go in for him and keep him up out of the water before I could get to him.”
Drauch says that 4-year-old Bear has been devoted to his family from the start.
“I’ve always told Bear growing up, ever since he was a pup to just watch over his babies,” says Drauch. “I’ve always told him that they were his babies.”
