Cole Harbour, N.S. — As 13-year-old Sam Bernard looked down at the still body of a cat some teenagers had just hung from a tree, he remembered a demonstration of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation he had seen in school.
Then he put his mouth to the animal and brought it back to life.
Yesterday, as Sam was being hailed for his quick thinking by neighbours, police and cat aficionados, the outgoing, red-haired teenager recalled being afraid that the ginger-and-white cat would die, and of the teenagers who had abused it.
Sam said he first became aware of the cat's predicament when he was awakened by its loud meows as the teenagers were dragging it into a wooded area. Sam followed them and saw the animal hanging from a tree with a rope wrapped around its neck.
"He [the cat] was hanging from the tree for two minutes. He was scratching himself and trying to get free. And I made them [the teenagers] feel bad by telling them they shouldn't be doing that, and they let it go," Sam recalled.
"It had closed its eyes and I said, 'It's not dead,' but they [the teenagers] said it was just nerves. They were going to hit it with a piece of wood with nails in it. It was just lying there and drooling and its eyes were closed and I didn't know what to do. It wasn't moving so I blew into its mouth and pushed on its stomach and it started meowing."
Sam said the only time he had seen mouth-to-mouth resuscitation applied was during a noon-hour
demonstration at a school in the Annapolis Valley.
Ignoring the teenagers' threats that they would kill all the cats in his neighbourhood if he told anyone what happened, Sam took the animal to a friend's house and phoned the local animal shelter, where he reached an answering machine. Then he called the RCMP.
Yesterday, the RCMP charged two boys, 16 and 14, with cruelty to animals.
RCMP spokesman Constable Peter Marshall, who said such incidents of animal cruelty are rare, praised Sam's quick actions.
"It's commendable that a boy that age would do this. He deserves some recognition," he said.
The cat appeared to have recovered from its ordeal yesterday. Sam was able to hold it for a photo, but it quickly pushed its way to freedom and hid under a nearby shed.
A veterinarian has offered to care for the cat until he can find it a home.
Yesterday, people in the small, suburban Halifax neighbourhood praised Sam's resuscitation efforts and expressed anger at the cruel treatment of the animal, which had been left behind when its owners moved recently.
Sam's 12-year-old friend, Daniel Wiseman, said he first saw the animal after the incident when it had rope marks on its neck and was having trouble walking. "It probably wouldn't have lived if Sam didn't show up just when he did," Daniel said.
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