Justin Case
03-01-2010, 10:32 AM
Published February 28, 2010 07:58 pm - PIERCE CITY, Mo.
Young dog saved toddlers life in bitter cold
By Jeff Lehr
[email protected]
PIERCE CITY, Mo. The first night that Kalina and Jeremy Fortin decided to wean their 2-year-old son of a habit of sleeping with them, the toddler proved way too footloose.
Brody fell sleep all right in the place they had made up for him on the floor of their bedroom. He was still asleep there when his father got up about 4 a.m. to use the bathroom, and again around 6:30 a.m. when his mother also went to the bathroom before returning to bed.
Sometime shortly thereafter on Sunday morning, Jan. 10, Brody apparently got up on his own and wandered out of the rural Pierce City home. The temperature outdoors was just below zero, and Brody wasnt wearing much more than the long-sleeved pajama top, sweatpants and socks he had gone to sleep in.
If not for the familys young German shepherd, Lobo, the consequences may well have been fatal.
So cold
Kalina awoke shortly before 8 a.m. and noticed Brody missing from the foot of the bed. She began searching for him throughout the house and calling his name. Then she saw that a set of cupboard-like doors in the kitchen to the homes back entryway, where Lobo stayed at nights, were untied and open. A kitchen stool was standing out of place next to the doorway.
Her heart sank.
She made her way to the front door that the family had stopped using while putting in new flooring in the foyer. She unlocked the door and flung it open.
There on the front porch lay Brody, with Lobo draped across his body. The familys blue heeler, Daisy, sat a short distance away. Her son was clearly suffering from hypothermia.
It was a parents worst nightmare.
That devastating feeling has not really left me yet, Kalina recalled in an interview last week. He was so cold.
She thought for a moment that her son might be dead. His lips were blue. She picked him up, carried him into the house and plopped down next to a source of heat in the kitchen, hugging him close to her, she said. It wasnt until she heard Brody exhale that she knew he was still alive.
Saving warmth Kalina was calling for Jeremy, who awoke confused and not at first grasping what had happened, she said.
They placed a call to 911 but then decided they couldnt wait for an ambulance. Kalina wrapped Brody in a robe of hers and a heating blanket, and the couple climbed in their truck and set off at a high rate of speed for the hospital in Monett, about eight miles away.
A Newton County Sheriffs Department report on the incident states that the emergency room doctor at the hospital in Monett reported that Brodys core temperature when he arrived was just 84 degrees, and it did not improve with initial treatment.
The childs condition was critical enough that medical personnel decided to fly him by medical helicopter to the pediatric intensive care unit at Cox Medical Center South in Springfield. He remained in intensive care until the next day and was kept in the hospital a total of four days.
Brody suffered frostbite to his hands and knees, but doctors could not tell how severe it might be until the third or fourth day, his mother said. By Tuesday, Jan. 12, her son was able to sit up but still could not stand, she said. Even after the hospital released him that Wednesday, the Fortins had to keep Brody confined to a little wagon until he could walk on his own.
Since then, Brody has made a full recovery, without the need for any surgery or skin grafts. Doctors and nurses have told the family that Lobo probably saved the childs life with his body heat when he curled up with him on the porch.
Driveway mishap
Kalina picked up an injured Lobo at a veterinarians office last week with relief in her heart.
The 7-month-old German shepherds broken pelvis should heal all right. Brody was delighted with getting his and his 7-year-old brother Jakes best friend back.
Kalina could put her mind at ease that, in accidentally running over Lobo as he slept beneath a wheel well of the familys truck in their driveway last Tuesday, she had not taken the life of the pet who saved her son.
Lobo had more than earned his keep since the Fortins bought him as a guard dog three months ago.
He and Brody and Jake have been connected at the hip since we got him, Kalina said.
Their youngest sons love of the dog may have played a role in his early morning misadventure in January. Kalina thinks her son awoke and decided to let Lobo out the back door.
At the time, they kept the cupboard-like doors to their back entryway off the kitchen tied shut with a shoestring well above the childs reach. They never anticipated that Brody might pull a kitchen stool over, climb up to reach the shoestring, and open the doors to get to Lobo and let him out the back of the house.
The couple believe that Brody followed the dog out the back, then wandered around the side of their home to the front door and couldnt get back in.
He was just letting Lobo out to potty, Kalina said. He didnt know it would be that cold.
She said Brody had pulled on his cowboy boots and a little hat before going out. But they werent nearly enough with temperature below zero.
Somehow, Lobo seems to have known that.
Protective breed
German shepherds are reputed to be a smart, loyal and protective breed of dog. But a rural Newton County familys dog, Lobo, seems to have demonstrated those traits at quite a young age.
http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/local_story_059195839.html?start:int=0
Young dog saved toddlers life in bitter cold
By Jeff Lehr
[email protected]
PIERCE CITY, Mo. The first night that Kalina and Jeremy Fortin decided to wean their 2-year-old son of a habit of sleeping with them, the toddler proved way too footloose.
Brody fell sleep all right in the place they had made up for him on the floor of their bedroom. He was still asleep there when his father got up about 4 a.m. to use the bathroom, and again around 6:30 a.m. when his mother also went to the bathroom before returning to bed.
Sometime shortly thereafter on Sunday morning, Jan. 10, Brody apparently got up on his own and wandered out of the rural Pierce City home. The temperature outdoors was just below zero, and Brody wasnt wearing much more than the long-sleeved pajama top, sweatpants and socks he had gone to sleep in.
If not for the familys young German shepherd, Lobo, the consequences may well have been fatal.
So cold
Kalina awoke shortly before 8 a.m. and noticed Brody missing from the foot of the bed. She began searching for him throughout the house and calling his name. Then she saw that a set of cupboard-like doors in the kitchen to the homes back entryway, where Lobo stayed at nights, were untied and open. A kitchen stool was standing out of place next to the doorway.
Her heart sank.
She made her way to the front door that the family had stopped using while putting in new flooring in the foyer. She unlocked the door and flung it open.
There on the front porch lay Brody, with Lobo draped across his body. The familys blue heeler, Daisy, sat a short distance away. Her son was clearly suffering from hypothermia.
It was a parents worst nightmare.
That devastating feeling has not really left me yet, Kalina recalled in an interview last week. He was so cold.
She thought for a moment that her son might be dead. His lips were blue. She picked him up, carried him into the house and plopped down next to a source of heat in the kitchen, hugging him close to her, she said. It wasnt until she heard Brody exhale that she knew he was still alive.
Saving warmth Kalina was calling for Jeremy, who awoke confused and not at first grasping what had happened, she said.
They placed a call to 911 but then decided they couldnt wait for an ambulance. Kalina wrapped Brody in a robe of hers and a heating blanket, and the couple climbed in their truck and set off at a high rate of speed for the hospital in Monett, about eight miles away.
A Newton County Sheriffs Department report on the incident states that the emergency room doctor at the hospital in Monett reported that Brodys core temperature when he arrived was just 84 degrees, and it did not improve with initial treatment.
The childs condition was critical enough that medical personnel decided to fly him by medical helicopter to the pediatric intensive care unit at Cox Medical Center South in Springfield. He remained in intensive care until the next day and was kept in the hospital a total of four days.
Brody suffered frostbite to his hands and knees, but doctors could not tell how severe it might be until the third or fourth day, his mother said. By Tuesday, Jan. 12, her son was able to sit up but still could not stand, she said. Even after the hospital released him that Wednesday, the Fortins had to keep Brody confined to a little wagon until he could walk on his own.
Since then, Brody has made a full recovery, without the need for any surgery or skin grafts. Doctors and nurses have told the family that Lobo probably saved the childs life with his body heat when he curled up with him on the porch.
Driveway mishap
Kalina picked up an injured Lobo at a veterinarians office last week with relief in her heart.
The 7-month-old German shepherds broken pelvis should heal all right. Brody was delighted with getting his and his 7-year-old brother Jakes best friend back.
Kalina could put her mind at ease that, in accidentally running over Lobo as he slept beneath a wheel well of the familys truck in their driveway last Tuesday, she had not taken the life of the pet who saved her son.
Lobo had more than earned his keep since the Fortins bought him as a guard dog three months ago.
He and Brody and Jake have been connected at the hip since we got him, Kalina said.
Their youngest sons love of the dog may have played a role in his early morning misadventure in January. Kalina thinks her son awoke and decided to let Lobo out the back door.
At the time, they kept the cupboard-like doors to their back entryway off the kitchen tied shut with a shoestring well above the childs reach. They never anticipated that Brody might pull a kitchen stool over, climb up to reach the shoestring, and open the doors to get to Lobo and let him out the back of the house.
The couple believe that Brody followed the dog out the back, then wandered around the side of their home to the front door and couldnt get back in.
He was just letting Lobo out to potty, Kalina said. He didnt know it would be that cold.
She said Brody had pulled on his cowboy boots and a little hat before going out. But they werent nearly enough with temperature below zero.
Somehow, Lobo seems to have known that.
Protective breed
German shepherds are reputed to be a smart, loyal and protective breed of dog. But a rural Newton County familys dog, Lobo, seems to have demonstrated those traits at quite a young age.
http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/local_story_059195839.html?start:int=0