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Published: Monday, Jul. 02, 2012 / Updated: Monday, Jul. 02, 2012 04:47 PM

Man saves pit bull’s life through CPR

FORT MILL -- 

When Rich McCoy learned CPR, he didn’t think the first time he used it would be on a dog.

Back in May, McCoy, 28, saved the life of his friend’s 4-year-old pit bull, Colt.

Ashley Wilson, owner of pit bulls Colt and Bam-Bam, heard her quieter dog, Bam-Bam, barking. When she went outside to see if anything was wrong, she saw Colt hanging by his collar from the top of his fenced-in kennel.

“His body was hanging over the fence and he had no life in his face,” Wilson said. “I’m eight months pregnant and couldn’t get him down myself.”

She called friend McCoy to help her get the dog down from the fence.

“Colt’s body collapsed as soon as we pulled the collar off of him,” she said.

McCoy immediately started CPR on the dog; blowing into his nose and doing chest compressions.

“Colt didn’t come to immediately. I blew in his mouth a few times enough to see his chest rise up and then started doing chest compressions,” McCoy said. “It probably took about 45 seconds to a minute until he took a small breath. It’s tough to gauge time when your adrenalin is going.”

Colt eventually started panting, blinking and moving his tongue. Once he got to his feet he drank three bowls of water, McCoy said.

“It was pretty slobbery, but honestly at the time I didn’t even think twice about it. Afterwards I went and rinsed my mouth out,” he said. “

The dog has a tendency to jump on top of his dog house. Wilson assumes he saw how close he was to the top of the fence and tried to jump over.

“I was very, very grateful that Rich was able to do CPR and get Colt to come back to life,” said Wilson. “I never would have known how to perform CPR on a dog.”

McCoy sees the importance of CPR not just in humans, but animals, too.

“I think the important part about everything is to make people aware that CPR works on both humans and animals,” he said. “I think he would have died without CPR. People should know that CPR works and always give it a shot; don’t call it quits until you’ve done everything you can.”