Woman uses CPR to Revive Cattle Dog Puppy

by The Courier Mail - 8 February 2010

A mother has used her nursing skills to bring a Cattle Dog pup back to life using cardiopulmonary resuscitation after it was attacked by a 2 metre carpet snake.

Jeraldene McKenna used the kiss of life and gentle compressions to revive the four week old pup after retrieving its limp body from the clutches of the python.

The drama unfolded at the family’s Tandur property south of Gympie when Mrs McKenna and her husband, Shane were alerted by a night-time ruckus in the pen where red cattle dog bitch Samantha was nursing her eight puppies.
In torchlight they saw Samantha trying to fend off the large snake which was rearing to strike at her while its tail was wrapped around the neck of the little pup they called Grace.

When Mr Mckenna chased off the snake, Mrs McKenna said she picked up the puppy and thought the worst.

“It’s tongue was hanging out, it was all blue, it just looked dead. Then I just thought, ‘if this was a baby what would I do?’ so I gave it two rescue breaths and started to push on its chest.”
Carrying the lifeless body back to their house, she continued giving the pup breaths and compressions and after a couple of minutes it managed a very weak breath on its own.

“To be honest, I thought it was going to be brain dead and I thought ‘what are we going to do now?” but I took it back out to its mother waiting by the door and I laid it down on the ground,” said Mrs McKenna.

“She stared to lick it and it lifted up and started suckling, then it stood up. It was amazing. I could not believe it.”