Kristin Sherman, 16, was driving her little brother and their dog Sadie to Chick-fil-A in the Harmans area on a wet Saturday when her Ford Escape skidded through an intersection, collided with a mail truck and spun into a fire hydrant.
Remarkably, Kristin, her brother, Christopher, 11, and the occupants of the mail truck escaped injury. But Sadie was not so lucky. The six-pound toy fox terrier appeared to be unconscious. Blood trickled from her nose and her breath rattled in her chest.
As Christopher began to cry, Kristin called home to say, "I think I just killed my best friend," her mother recalled last week.
But rescuers from the Anne Arundel County Fire Department and the Odenton Volunteer Fire Department managed to revive Sadie with an oxygen mask designed to fit an animal's snout. It was the first time the equipment, which was donated to the county in April, was used to save the life of a pet, the fire department said.
"I think that them giving her oxygen as quickly as they did was the difference between life and death," said the children's mother, Beverly Sherman, 45.
In the past, rescuers used human oxygen masks to resuscitate pets, but the masks did not supply oxygen efficiently to animals. Maury and Lynn Chaput, the owners of Canine Fitness Center in Crownsville, raised the money for the masks and donated them to the county.
More than half of the county's 30 fire stations now have the masks, which can be adjusted to fit both large and small pets.
When crews arrived at the accident scene at the intersection of Park Circle Drive and Race Road on Sept. 6, they made sure that all of the humans were not injured, then turned their attention to Sadie.
"I thought, 'This is going to be really bad. The dog is going to die right here with the little boy watching,'" said Erika Nesvold, a volunteer EMT with the Odenton crew.
Lt. Susan Egan, a firefighter and paramedic with the county fire department, picked up Sadie and wrapped her in a blanket. Nesvold cradled the dog in her arms and placed the oxygen mask on her nose.
The rescue workers asked Christopher to hold the bottle of oxygen and speak softly to Sadie, hoping that the boy's voice would reassure the dog.
After about 20 minutes, Sadie appeared to perk up. Her eyes fluttered open and she turned her head to face Christopher, Nesvold said.
