Meet Grace-Ann, a 15-year old sophomore at Compass Academy.  Her story is both shocking and inspiring! Her family has 4 dogs - Charleigh (a 5- year old female lab/beagle mix), Tucker (a 4-year old male puggle), Frankie (2-year-old, 73-pound female boxer/lab mix) and Morgan (a 4.5-month-old, 50 pound, female lab).  Morgan, the puppy, was a Christmas present for the family and is essentially Grace-Ann's dog.  

Grace-Ann was in her room getting ready for school when she heard yelping from the backyard.  She was shocked when she saw Frankie had Morgan, the puppy, by the neck and was pulling her around.  Frankie and Morgan love each other and play constantly, so Grace-Ann thought Frankie was playing a little too aggressively for Morgan.  She realized immediately that this was a dangerous situation and sprinted from her room on the 2nd floor down to the basement only stopping to put on her work boots.  Once she reached the dogs she realized that the bigger, older dog was in a panic.  Her teeth had become stuck on the puppy's collar and as they tried to disentangle themselves, the puppy's collar had become twisted hurting sweet, Morgan.  The collar was so tight, Grace-Ann could not even remove it from Frankie's teeth with her fingers.  No wonder Frankie didn't let go of Morgan, she couldn't!

It took a moment, but Grace-Ann was finally able to release the clip on the collar and remove it, but the situation was dire.  Morgan wasn’t breathing. Grace-Ann was worried that she had a broken neck and felt Morgan's neck from her ears to her shoulders.  Not feeling anything obvious, she checked her mouth for something obstructing her airway. She knew she had to do CPR to save her puppy.  Grace-Ann did several chest compressions, did a rescue breath by cupping her hands around Morgan's snout blowing into her nose, then she did several more chest compressions. Morgan started to make a couple of noises and Grace-Ann knew she was breathing again.  

Grace-Ann and her 18-yr old brother, Mason, immediately brought Morgan to the veterinary hospital.  Morgan was being cared for by the veterinarian within 20 minutes of being strangled.  She had major complications from the incident.  Upon later investigation, Morgan's collar had twisted down so much it went from a 15-inch collar to 10.5 inches, 4.5 inches too small! After some proper veterinary care, Morgan went home that evening and was closely monitored by her family for the next couple of days.  She got a little better each day and after about a week was back to her puppy self!  

When asked how she knew what to do, Grace-Ann said she learned by watching The Incredible Dr. Pol on TV and a video on the internet of a man doing CPR on a drowned puppy.  Thanks to Grace-Ann's quick thinking and the quick actions of both Grace-Ann and Mason, this story has a very happy ending.  Grace-Ann would like to be a doctor someday, watches lots of medical/surgical videos online in her spare time and is a junior volunteer at EIRMC.

Grace-Ann is pictured here with Frankie and Morgan, who are both modeling their brand new PetSafe Breakaway Collars. Thank you, Grace-Ann for being a quick thinking, inspiring, rescue hero!