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Cat Gets One Of Its Lives Back Thanks To Gift To Firefighters

Venice Fire Department

Jodie Saylor Leonard administers oxygen with a special mask provided by the Chico Project with emergency medical technician Randy Cody of the Sarasota County Fire Department.

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By KIM HACKETT

Sarasota Herald-Tribune

Published: March 27, 2009

VENICE - Daisy the cat could not join the Leonard family in the move back into their fire-damaged home Thursday, but she is still meowing thanks to a fire department rescue and the debut of a $70 piece of animal lifesaving equipment.

"If she keeps eating well, she can come home" soon from the animal hospital, said Jodie Saylor Leonard, whose young son started the fire that put the 6-year-old white and grey feline in peril.

Daisy was grabbed by a firefighter from a smoky room and revived with a kit donated two years ago by Venice resident Mary Horlick. Her son started a foundation to provide the equipment -- three special oxygen masks that fit to animals' snouts, from a kitten to a Great Dane -- free to fire departments.

Daisy's drama started Sunday afternoon after Leonard's 4-year-old son, Asa, snatched a lighter from the lanai of their Alba Avenue East home and started playing with it on the trundle bed in his room.

The blankets caught fire and Asa pushed the trundle under his bed, hoping to snuff out the flames. When that did not work, he slammed his door and ran outside, where his mother was mowing.

Asa's sister, Emily, 5, did not understand the fuss as her mother and father, Jon, frantically rounded up the two turtles, two dogs and two cats and pulled her out of the house.

No one could find Daisy.

Firefighter Scott Blanchard reached around Asa's smoke-filled room and grabbed what felt like a stuffed animal.

It was Daisy, and she was not breathing.

Firefighters took the cat to an ambulance and applied the snout-fitting mask, attached to the same oxygen tanks used for people.

The masks have been in both the deputy chief and battalion's cars since 2007. "It's the first time the situation has come up," said department spokesman Jerry Collins.

Daisy has been recovering at the Englewood Animal Hospital.

Asa's clothes and toys were destroyed, and he has endured relentless teasing from Emily, Saylor Leonard said.

"He now wants to be a fireman," Saylor Leonard said.

Through a special fund, the Venice Fire Department paid for the family to stay at a local motel for three days while smoke and water damage in Asa's bedroom was cleaned. The rest of the house was not damaged.

"It's nice to have success stories," Horlick said.

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