When Patricia Drauch of Marcellus, Mich., made the horrible discovery of her 14-month-old son, Stanley, in the backyard pool on Sunday, at first she thought the toddler was floating on his back.
But as she got closer, she saw that Stanley was actually above the surface of the water. Bear, the family’s black Labrador Retriever, was in the pool, holding the boy up by balancing him on his back.
“He didn’t bark. He didn’t move,” Drauch told 24 Hour News 8. “It was like he was afraid to move at all until I got Stanley up out of the pool, and that’s when [Bear] came up out of the pool with me.”
Drauch said she had walked out to the garage to get a shovel to do gardening when she noticed that Stanley, who had accompanied her, had disappeared. She searched the yard and then made the grim discovery.
“It was scary. His lips were blue. His eyes were rolled back,” Drauch told 24 Hour News 8.
She said that when her 911 call wouldn’t go through, she drove Stanley to a local fire station. On the way there, he regained consciousness. He was examined at the fire station and then transferred to a local hospital, where he was determined to be in good condition.
Last night, barely 24 hours after nearly drowning, Stanley was able to play with Bear in the family’s backyard.
Drauch credited Bear for saving her son’s life by preventing water from entering the boy’s lungs. “If Bear wasn’t out, I don’t think Stanley would have made it,” she told 24 Hour News 8.
Her husband has installed construction fencing around the pool to prevent any future accidents. Cass County Undersheriff Rick Behnke told 24 Hour News 8 that Children’s Protective Services is conducting a routine investigation into the incident, but no charges are expected to be filed.
Drauch told 24 Hour News 8, “I’d always told [Bear] since he was 4 weeks old that these are your babies, watch out. He has big paws and they were little and I didn’t want him to step on them, so it paid off teaching him to watch out for them.”
PHOTO: AMagill
The post Black Lab Saves Toddler From Drowning in Pool appeared first on i Love Dogs.