Pet oxygen masks give rescuers a leg up
North Plainfield facility donates 16 masks for emergency responders in
Bridgewater.
STAFF PHOTO BY ED PAGLIARINI
Kelly Kurash, manager of Best Friends Pet Resorts & Salons of North
Plainfield, fits an oxygen mask on Kayla, held by Robert Hanlon II, deputy
coordinator of the Office of Emergency Management in Bridgewater.
By PETER N. SPENCER
Staff Writer
BRIDGEWATER [New Jersey]-- Township pets can breathe easier with help from
some specially designed first aid equipment.
Best Friends Pet Resorts & Salons of North Plainfield on Tuesday donated 16
pet oxygen masks, used to treat dogs and cats suffering from smoke
inhalation, to the township's Office of Emergency Management. The masks are
the first pet-specific lifesaving devices to be carried by New Jersey
emergency responders, and are becoming standard equipment in firetrucks and
ambulances nationwide, according to Best Friends spokeswoman Barbara F.
Bangser.
Though the current trend in providing emergency responders with the
equipment is still too new to chart, Best Friends alone has donated or
earmarked more than 600 masks for 41 communities nationwide, including 10 in
Central Jersey, since the Cause for PAWS program began in July, Bangser
said. The program started with a donation of 15 pet masks to the North
Plainfield Fire Department, and followed similar ones in California and
Florida.
"One of the reasons Best Friends opted to sponsor this program was because
we saw a need in so many communities that wasn't being met," Bangser said.
"Of the more than three dozen towns and cities we've offered the masks to,
none have had them before."
And the masks have paid dividends already by saving several pets, she added.
"People treat their pets like members of their family ... saving your pet is
like saving a member of your own family," said Kelly Kurash, center manager
for the North Plainfield Best Friends.
With help from 1-year-old Siberian husky Kayla, Kurash demonstrated use of
the oxygen mask for members of the Bridgewater Township Volunteer Emergency
Services.
Each set costs about $50 and contains three masks: one size for cats or
flat-faced dogs, one for small dogs and one for large dogs. The plastic,
cone-shaped apparatus fits over the pet's snout and connects to a
firefighter's oxygen bottle via a tube. The masks are the same ones that
veterinarians use when administering anesthesia to animals, except these
pump 100 percent oxygen to clear lungs of lethal smoke, Kurash said.
While fire departments do not keep statistics on how often animals suffering
from smoke inhalation are rescued from fires, dogs or cats are found in at
least 1 out of 3 U.S. households, according to American Pet Products
Manufacturers Association.
Township Office of Emergency Management's deputy coordinator, Robert Hanlon
II, who is also a emergency volunteer, said he encounters pets in more than
half of the households he responds to in Bridgewater.
There were a few times Hanlon had to use oxygen masks designed for humans to
save a dog or a cat, but they were not nearly as effective as these, he
said.
Donations for the oxygen masks were made by members of the community, and
The Garden State Cat Club of N.J. Best Friends matched those donations on a
dollar-for-dollar basis for fire stations within 15 miles of a Best Friends
facility.
Peter N. Spencer can be reached at (908) 707-3176 or pspencer@c-n.com.
AT A GLANCE: For more information about the pet oxygen masks program,
contact your local Best Friends facility, call 1-888-FOR-PETS, or visit
www.bestfriendspetcare.com.
from the Courier News website www.c-n.com
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