Naples firefighters resuscitate homeowner’s pet lizard
By JENNA BUZZACCO (Contact)
Originally published 6:59 p.m., Thursday, November 20, 2008
Updated 6:59 p.m., Thursday, November 20, 2008
Firefighters save a Savannah Monitor lizard
City of Naples firefighters save a monitor lizard from a smoldering fire was found in a 50 gallon container.
NAPLES — You can call him one lucky lizard.
A 3-foot-long Savannah Monitor named Rex can thank Naples firefighters, paramedics and a special oxygen mask for saving his life.
Naples firefighters responded to a Royal Harbor home Wednesday afternoon to find a 50-gallon glass container smoldering in a small building behind the home. Rex, a lizard native to sub-Saharan Africa, lives in the container and officials believe a heat lamp keeping him warm fell over and sparked some newspaper in his tank.
Though there was no fire, smoke filled the building.
By the time firefighters got to him, Rex was not breathing and had charring and soot inside his nostrils and mouth.
Battalion Chief Pete DiMaria said Thursday his crew took the reptile out of the shed and brought it to their truck to try to save it’s life.
“We figured we could try (to revive it),” DiMaria said. “There was a young boy there and he was hit hard by this thing.”
Naples firefighter Travis Wright stepped up to the challenge, DiMaria said. A reptile lover himself, Wright took over resuscitation efforts, even holding the lizard’s mouth open while Naples firefighter and paramedic Joe Fetzer cleared the animal’s airway.
Wright and Fetzer were spared mouth-to-mouth, though, thanks to a special oxygen mask for domestic animals purchased by the department a few years ago, said fire Chief Jim McEvoy.
The firefighters placed the mask over the lizard’s mouth, but DiMaria said the animal didn’t immediately perk up. The team worked on the animal for about 25 minutes, using two cylinders of oxygen.
“We really don’t train (on these), we train on humans,” DiMaria said. “It was a pretty unique save.”
McEvoy said he was unsure how many times, if any, the equipment has been used since its purchase about three years ago. He said he was happy, though, that the firefighters were able to save a life using it.
“It’s one of the great parts of our job,” McEvoy said. “You never know what you’ll run into.”
When reached by phone Thursday, Rex’s owners declined to comment about the incident.
