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6 Puppies Rescued From Fire, Revived

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

Call it an extraordinary case of puppy love.

Los Angeles city firefighters rescued six dying puppies from a smoke-filled garage Sunday in North Hills and then revived them with oxygen.

Capt. George DeMott described the rescue as “no big deal.” But Ed Fitzpatrick, the grateful owner of the mixed German shepherd and Alaskan malamute puppies, disagreed.

“They saved every last one of them,” he said. “They brought them back to life.”

The month-old puppies were trapped when flames erupted from a cigarette in Fitzpatrick’s garage, said city fire spokesman Bob Collis. The garage door opener was locked in the car inside the garage.

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Fitzpatrick extinguished the fire by spraying water from a garden hose through a window. It took firefighters five trips to retrieve all the puppies. “I think a couple of them had died just as we got them out,” DeMott said. “There were two puppies that we didn’t think we would be able to save, but we just kept going at it because we knew it was worth it.”

He and firefighter Ricardo Najera used an oxygen tank and face mask to force air into the puppies’ lungs and revive them.

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