Help lifts girl's blue mood about bird

A young animal lover can't save one member of a menagerie, but firefighters ease the pain with a surprise.

By ANNE LINDBERG

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 18, 2000

LEALMAN -- Eleven-year-old Megan O'Hagan was splashing in the pool with her sister at home when she heard her grandfather shout, "There's a fire, Megan!"

"Smoke was coming out the windows and it was coming out the door, too," Megan said.

Megan and her grandfather reached the front door at the same time. When they opened the door, Tessa, the family's German shepherd puppy, ran out.

As her grandfather searched for a fire extinguisher, Megan ran to a neighbor's with her sister, Shelby, 3. She called her mom at work, and her mother dialed 911. Then Megan ran back into the burning house with her grandfather.

"I came in to help him," Megan explained. "I was kind of scared because I was worried about my grandpa and the animals."

Inside, the house was filled with smoke. An electrical cord behind the family's aquarium had shorted out, causing a fire.

"It was worse than night," Megan said. "It was so hard to see."

Megan grabbed cages one at a time and carried animals to safety. There was Sabrina, the ferret. There were two sugar gliders, Nola and one with no name. There was the cockatiel that belonged to Megan's 3-year-old sister.

By that time, the Lealman Fire Department had arrived. Firefighters refused to allow Megan to go back inside until the fire was out.

That's when Megan found out the bad news as she stepped into her bedroom with a friend.

"My friend said, "Look, Megan, your bird's dead.' "

There, in his cage, lay AJ, a blue parakeet Megan had owned for three or four months. She had raised him from a baby and named him after one of the Backstreet Boys.

At first, Megan did not believe AJ was dead because one foot was still propped on a bar of the cage.

They buried AJ in the back yard.

As she described the experience, Megan's brown eyes filled with tears. "I was so upset," she said.

But the Lealman Fire Department came to the rescue again.

Megan's mother, Victoria Wharton, called firefighters to ask their advice because Megan had black soot streaming out of her nose. While on the phone, Wharton thanked them for saving the house and mentioned Megan's loss.

That got firefighters thinking. They got in their truck and went to the nearest pet store.

When they drove up to the house, neighbors came running, thinking the fire had restarted. Instead of bringing out their hoses, they handed Megan a paper bag.

Inside was another blue and white parakeet.

"They got the exact same color as the other one, which is weird because they'd never seen the other one," Wharton said.

Lealman firefighter Ronnie Neuberger said firefighters just wanted to help Megan recover more easily from her loss.

"She's going to remember it," he said. "It makes it a little easier for her."

Megan was thrilled.

"I was, like, really happy. . . . I was surprised. I didn't expect anything," Megan said. "I didn't know how to thank them."

So she and her mother baked chocolate chip cookies and delivered them to the firefighters along with a thank-you note.

"Big Danny, he grabbed those cookies quick," Megan said of one of the firefighters.

Megan named the new bird Spaz.

Others began donating birds to replace AJ. The pet shop where she got AJ gave her a lame parakeet, which Megan calls Taz, and a baby bird.

"It kind of pyramided," Wharton said.

Now Megan has plans for Spaz, a female, and Taz, a male.

"I'm going to breed parakeets and sell them to the stores," she said.

Megan has already talked to one pet store about taking the babies.

But even with the prospect of other birds, Spaz has a special place in Megan's heart, and so do the firefighters of Lealman's C shift.

"We're going to bring them cookies during Christmas and the holidays," Megan said.

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