Pet dog Roxy hailed hero for saving Iowa family from carbon monoxide poisoning
A 'mild-mannered' dog belonging to an Iowa family saved her pet parents from carbon monoxide poisoning. On Monday night, December 20, Brad Harbert's beloved husky/coonhound mix, Roxy, suddenly woke him up. Harbert’s carbon monoxide detector was reportedly going off.
“She just was jumping off my bed, jumping back up on the bed. When I started to come to, I was hearing an alarm, and it wasn’t the smoke alarm,” Harbert told WHO-DT. “I jumped out of bed. Right when I did, Roxy came out to the hallway … I grabbed the [carbon monoxide] detector and found out that if it chirps four times … there’s active carbon monoxide in the house."
READ MORE
Harbert quickly brought his son and father outside, along with hero dog Roxy, and called 911. Officers reportedly found that the deadly odorless gas leak was coming from Harbert's electric and gas fireplace.
“She can tell something was wrong that night when she woke me up and just her actions, she was kind of shivering and just really concerned that we would get outside. [I’m] very, very happy to have a dog and very happy to have her,” Harbert said, adding that Roxy is usually 'mild-mannered'. According to the CDC, unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning kills 400 Americans every year. Harbert advises all homeowners to ensure they have working carbon monoxide detectors, and have their fireplaces regularly serviced.
Last year, a two-year-old girl's family hailed heir dog as a hero after she stayed by the missing toddler's side for nearly two days until she was ultimately found. The toddler, Charlee Campbell, went missing from her grandmother's home in Lebanon Junction. The girl had reportedly wandered into the woods and multiple search crews took two days to find the child. When the search crew found the toddler, she was not alone and her loyal dog, Penny the pit bull was by her side as they both returned home safely on Saturday.
"This is our hero right here," Charlee's grandmother Beth Campbell had said. Campbell told the news outlet that she believes that the dog stayed by her granddaughter's side the entire time she was missing. Campbell, while talking about Penny, said: "When my dog didn't come home, and my baby wasn't home, she was not going to leave that baby until she got here." The Bullitt County Sheriff's Office said that the dog arrived home just moments before Charlee was found by neighbors.
