Ultimate sacrifice

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This article was published 28/07/2018 (2908 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s the kind of story that reaches inside your chest and pulls out your heart.

But it’s also a tale of courage, of sacrifice and of an unbreakable bond of love.

It began about 9:30 p.m. Monday night when a city family was out for a walk in King’s Park in south Winnipeg and their beloved dog decided to take a swim in one of the park’s retention ponds.

Police say the dog “was having trouble swimming,” and a 58-year-old man, whose name was not released, went into the water to rescue the family pet, a four-year-old Maltese cross named Smokey.

The owner “got trapped in some very thick reeds in soft mud underneath the water, which was extremely deep in some parts where you weren’t able to touch the ground,” Winnipeg Police Service Const. Tammy Skrabek told the Free Press.

Two men, alerted by cries for help, jumped in the water and pulled the man out, but attempts to resuscitate him failed and he was later pronounced dead in hospital. Smokey was found the following morning.

Tragically, this heartbreaking story plays out far too often, as we can see from today’s list of Five Heroes Who Lost Their Lives Trying to Save a Beloved Pet:

5) The heroic animal lover: Travis Yonkers, 9

The final act of love: You won’t find a lot about little Travis Yonkers online — an ABC News report and a brief obituary on AnimalPeopleForum.org — but what is there is heart-rending.

According to ABC News, three years after the family dog rescued him from a burning home, Travis tried to return the favour. His heroism, and loyalty to his beloved dog, ended up costing him his life.

It was about 3 a.m. on Aug. 15, 2000, and Travis, 9, and his brother, Corey, 12, were asleep in a home owned by their grandparents in Mentor Township, Mich.

“It’s horrible — it’s a real tragedy,” Mike Larrison, Oscoda County sheriff, said at the time. Larrison said a cigarette or an electric-powered recliner was suspected as the possible cause of the fire. Investigators told ABC Travis awoke to the screeching of a smoke alarm, and raced to wake up his grandmother and older brother, then all three got out of the burning house. The grandfather was not home at the time of the fire, the sheriff said.

After getting everyone out safely, Travis told his older brother, who is mentally disabled, to begin sounding the car horn to attract the attention of a neighbour. That’s when Travis decided to go back into the burning home to rescue a dog that had saved his life by alerting him to a 1997 house fire.

“He felt a strong inclination to save the dog because three years ago there was a fire and the dog woke everybody up,” Larrison recalled. By all accounts, that’s just the kind of kid Travis was.

“Travis was a very caring little boy,” Christina Siwik, principal at Mio-AuSable Elementary School, told the Bay City Times. “He got along well with his classmates and he was always willing to do things in class to help people.”

 

4) The heroic animal lover: Nancy Price, 57

The final act of love: When firefighters arrived at a west Ottawa townhouse complex around 7:30 p.m. in August 2014, they found smoke and flames shooting from all three floors of Unit 35, where Nancy Price lived with her two dogs.

With the aid of a neighbour, Price had escaped the unit with burns on her arms and face. Neighbours told CBC News that two people tried to prevent her from running back inside her home, but nothing was going to stop her from trying to save the one soul who relied on her most of all — her blind, 17-year-old Dalmatian, Damien. The pair were found together in the burned-out second floor.

“She went in to get her dogs, but I didn’t see her get out,” neighbour Kate Rodriguez said. “I don’t know, I only saw the German shepherd (Buddy) get out, I didn’t see the Dalmatian.”

The disabled Dalmatian was too ill to make it down the stairs on its own.

Neighbour Breezy Vezina told reporters she wished there was more she could have done.

“She was a good lady,” Vezina said. “I busted the door open. She seemed a little confused. I grabbed her and got her out of the house, but she slipped out of my hands and was shouting — ‘My dog, my dog!’”

Moments later, the main floor ceiling collapsed in a blast, and neighbours heard the horrifying sound of Price’s screams.

“I tried to go back in after her, but the flames came at me,” Vezina said. “She always said she wanted to pass away with him (Damien).”

Price doted on her two dogs and included them in her annual Christmas photo. Price’s nephew, Andrew Neville, told CBC his aunt had two sons and an ex-husband, but thought of her dogs as her children.

“Every story was about her dog, especially Damien, that was her one true love,” he said. “She would have done anything to save her dog, she even said life isn’t worth living without her dog… she loved that dog more than she loved herself.”

 

3) The heroic animal lover: Don Langford, 64

The final act of love: By all accounts, there were few things Don Langford loved more than getting together with his best friends to play board games and work on cars until late into the night. Not surprisingly, he formed a special bond with his best friend’s dog, an Italian mastiff named Bella.

He was the type of guy who put his family and friends before himself, regardless of “whether they had two legs or four,” his daughter, Beth West, told the Chicago Tribune.

In March 2017, Langford was at his best friend’s house in Dyer, Ind., where, along with another buddy, they were working on Langford’s 1994 F-150 pickup truck in a pole barn behind the home while Bella snoozed nearby. Which is when two wires sparked and ignited some gasoline, starting a fire in the barn.

The three men raced outside to call 911, but that’s when Langford’s true nature kicked in — he remembered Bella was still trapped inside.

“He told them he was going back in for Bella,” his daughter recalled. “My dad was the most kind-hearted person you could ever know.”

Langford found Bella, but the flames had grown so large there was no way the pair could get out. His friends made four or five attempts to get into the barn, but the heat made it impossible and they ended up being treated for smoke inhalation.

When firefighters arrived and doused the flames, they found Donald holding Bella where the two had died together.

“When we showed up, the structure was fully involved,” fire Chief Fred Willman told the Tribune. “The fire was too intense to go inside.”

West said her dad was always there whenever someone needed him, even if that someone was an animal.

“It didn’t matter where he was at or what he was doing, if we needed him, he was there,” she said. “He would go without just so that somebody else could have something.”

 

2) The heroic animal lover: Scott Wulff, 61

The final act of love: Times were tough for Scott Wulff. A year after his wife died, he reportedly became homeless — a fact he hid from his adult children — and it was believed he sought shelter under a train bridge overpass in Jacksonville, Fla. All he really had left in the world was Astrid, a Staffordshire bull terrier he’d rescued from the streets in 2013.

“Anywhere my dad went, Astrid was there,” Scott’s son Jacob told People magazine. “She was his best friend. She was homeless and running loose on a bad side of town. She ran straight to him and he just fell in love… My dad struggled with depression and alcoholism throughout his life. She was his accountability partner. She depended on him for her survival and he knew that, so having her really helped him keep his act clean. It was almost like his second shot at parenthood — taking care of someone. That was their relationship. Astrid helped my dad get through a lot of his depression and face his personal demons.”

He told People his dad had become sober in recent years and started a landscaping job. On Nov. 13, 2017, witnesses say, Astrid became spooked by an Amtrak train’s lights and sounds and ran directly towards the busy tracks. A panicked Wulff ran after his dog in a desperate bid to pull her to safety, but both were struck and killed.

“No matter how much or how little he had, he would always feed his dog first,” said Isaiah Boone, a cashier in a restaurant across the street. “He made sure he let everybody know how much he loved her and how proud he was of her.”

Said Jacob: “People may say, ‘It’s just a dog.’ But for someone to literally stare death in the eyes for something they believe in or someone they love is so incredibly selfless. One thing I’ve learned from my father in recent years is that people need to value life a lot more… We need to value others’ lives, too. He did that for Astrid, but what about all the homeless pets who don’t have anyone to put their lives on the line for them? I’ve never been more proud of my father than I am now.”

 

1) The heroic animal lover: David Allen Kirwan, 24

The final act of love: When it comes to saving a life — even that of a pet — some people don’t stop to worry about whether they are putting their own life at risk. That was the case with 24-year-old David Allen Kirwan from La Cañada, Calif., who was driving through Yellowstone National Park’s Fountain Paint Pot thermal area with his friend Ronald Ratliff and Ratliff’s dog, Moosie, on July 20, 1981.

According to the Chicago Tribune and other news sites, when the friends parked to take a look at the hot springs, an excited Moosie, a large mastiff or Great Dane, escaped from the truck and jumped into the nearby Celestine Pool, a famed boiling spring that reaches over 93 C. The terrified dog began yelping and the two friends rushed to the spring, where bystanders warned Kirwan not to enter the water.

“Like hell I won’t!” Kirwan reportedly yelled back before diving head-first into the boiling water. He swam to the dog, vanished underwater, and then the incredible heat forced him to let go of the dog and abandon the rescue.

Ratliff was able to pull his friend from the hot spring, resulting in second-degree burns to his own feet. Moosie did not survive and his would-be rescuer was in extremely bad shape.

“That was stupid,” Kirwan reportedly said. “How bad am I? That was a stupid thing I did.”

At that point, the skin was already peeling from his body and he appeared to be blind. The brave young man had sustained third-degree burns over 100 per cent of his body, including his head. Kirwan died the following morning at a Salt Lake City hospital.

On some websites, his death is listed as one of the most gruesome in history, but it is more important to remember that, foolish or not, he made the ultimate sacrifice in an attempt to save the life of a friend’s beloved dog.

There are literally hundreds of similar stories online, and they are tragedies for sure. But they are also a testament to the power of love, and the willingness of some human beings to put their lives on the line if there is even the slightest chance of saving their best friend, no matter how many legs he or she has.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca