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Letter to the editor

Pet masks give rescuers relief

Mouth-to-snout resuscitation is a thing of the past thanks to oxygen masks from animal advocates.

By JUSTIN GEORGE
Published June 6, 2005

INVERNESS - Citrus County Fire Rescue Capt. Steve Whitmeyer has been in a mobile home when the floor collapsed. He estimates that he has entered 20 burning buildings in 17 years. He wears a blue baseball cap that says CCFR, a gold badge and sunglasses. He wears a bright white shirt, instead of the blue ones the firefighters wear, signifying his rank.

All this might explain how he can sit on the chrome bumper of Fire Engine 101 and speak securely without hesitation or shame about the times he has given "mouth-to-snout" resuscitation.

"Yeah, twice," Whitmeyer said. "Once to a ferret. Once to a pit bull."

Who lived?

"Ferret did," he said. "Dog didn't."

Ferret?

"That's what I was told to do," he said.

Coming to Whitmeyer and his colleagues' aid is the Humanitarians of Florida Inc., a local nonprofit animal advocacy group, which gave the fire department 12 sets of pet oxygen masks. The clear plastic cups with green vents, similar to human oxygen masks, cost the group $2,000.

Each set has nine different sizes to fit cats and dogs of all sizes. Maybe even ferrets.

"If it's a dog with a pudgy face, it would fit on them," Humanitarians president Donna Schmid said. "If it's a dog with a long face, it would fit on them."

The idea for the donation came from a Humanitarians member, who fostered animals and lost several from smoke inhalation during a fire.

"If we can save some animals' lives, it would be wonderful. Of course, they didn't have funding for this," Schmid said of the fire department. "They don't have enough funding to take care of enough things for humans."

This year, pet oxygen masks seem to be exploding in popularity. Several fire-rescue units in Palm Beach County carry them, according to Friday's Palm Beach Post . Chicago-area fire departments have begun using them, the Chicago Tribune reported last month. They're being used in Wisconsin and Connecticut, too.

"It's just part of the maturation and growth of the field of veterinary medicine," Dr. David Brunson, veterinary anesthesiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, told the Tribune.

Saving pets is also part of a firefighter's duty, they said, especially when children or adults look longingly at them, pleading for them to save the family dog or cat. Deputy Fire Chief Ray Hardy actually ordered Whitmeyer to save the ferret in 2002, pointing to a mobile home as soon as Whitmeyer arrived on the scene.

"There's a ferret inside," Whitmeyer recalled. "Do what you got to do."

"I think of it as if it's my pet, and you can do something," said Whitmeyer, who owns a mixed-breed dog named Zoe. "You do it especially with kids standing around."

But it's not just out of duty. Firefighters don't deny the strong allegiance they have with animals, given historical bonds that have developed between horses, dalmatians and them.

"It's not about being tough," Whitmeyer said without flinching. "You got to be sensitive. Sensitive about people. We hurt and feel pain like everyone else."

Many firefighters have been on calls where pets perished, and they said it's something that stays with them. In December, more than a dozen pets died in an Inverness fire.

Whitmeyer remembers two wolves and a pet panther perishing a few years ago during a fire near State Road 44 E. He can still remember the panther jumping into its fence in fear.

Before the advent of pet oxygen masks, firefighters and emergency medical service responders would sometimes cut nasal cannulas, or the plastic tubes that fit snug around people's heads and ears, and wave the oxygen coming out at a cat or dog's muzzle.

The sealable pet masks are supposed to offer a more precise method of delivery, though they haven't been tested here yet. They came close when a Beverly Hills woman mixed chemicals, whose fumes caused her dog to pass out, Fire Rescue spokesman Tom McLean said.

The animal revived before a mask arrived. But just having them on hand, Whitmeyer said, is a relief.

"You ever kissed a strange dog?" Whitmeyer asked. "You want to do mouth-to-snout with a dog you don't know?"

--Justin George can be reached at 860-7309 or jgeorge@sptimes.com

[Last modified June 6, 2005, 01:34:12]