Pot-bellied pig saves owner's life by lying in front of a car
 |
| Photo by Josh Soto on Unsplash |
It was just like those "Lassie" episodes where Timmy would injure himself in the wilderness and the ever-loyal, super-intelligent collie would run to town, bark for help and lead rescuers to her master.
OK, it was almost like that.
Except that Jo Ann Altsman of Beaver Falls didn't twist her ankle but had a heart attack. And it wasn't in the wilderness but in the bedroom of her vacation trailer on Presque Isle. And the pet that ran - er, waddled - for help was a Vietnamese pot-bellied pig named LuLu.
When you think about it, LuLu's real-life feat the morning of Aug. 4 was much more amazing than any of Lassie's fictional rescues because she can't bark. That didn't matter. Smart pig that she is, LuLu did the next best thing.
She lay down in front of a car on the road outside the trailer and then led a disbelieving motorist to Altsman, whose ordeal lasted 45 minutes.
Had 15 more minutes elapsed, doctors told her, she likely would have died.
Jack, Ann's husband, was fishing on Lake Erie when had a heart attack, her second in 18 months.
She threw an alarm clock through a window of their vacation trailer at Presque Isle and yelled for help - all to no avail. Bear, their dog, an American Eskimo, just barked.
LuLu cried "big, fat tears," Jo Ann recalled, but she didn't cry all the way home. She knew what to do.
She squeezed through the doggy door and somehow pushed open the gate. According to villagers, she then lay down in traffic.
One nice man eventually stopped and followed LuLu to the trailer. Seeing the cuts LuLu had suffered on her stomach in squeezing through the small doggy door, the man yelled, "Lady, your pig's in distress."
"I'm in distress, too," came the reply. "Please call an ambulance."
Jo Ann was flown to The Medical Center, Beaver, for open-heart surgery.
To this day, the hero has never stepped forward to claim his fame. But LuLu was catapulted to celebrity status, appearing on talk shows and in magazines and books. She snorted at David Letterman and grunted at Oprah Winfrey. Kids loved her, cameras followed her and strangers spoiled her.
And she really could have stood to lose a few kilograms. She was almost 159 kilograms at her heaviest, 113 when she died. But with fans constantly dropping by to give her doughnuts, slices of pizza and Dreamsicles, and LuLu teaching herself to open the refrigerator door and cans of Pepsi, it was difficult to monitor her junk-food intake.
To this day, the hero has never stepped forward to claim his fame. But LuLu was catapulted to celebrity status, appearing on talk shows and in magazines and books. She snorted at David Letterman and grunted at Oprah Winfrey. Kids loved her, cameras followed her and strangers spoiled her.
And she really could have stood to lose a few kilograms. She was almost 159 kilograms at her heaviest, 113 when she died. But with fans constantly dropping by to give her doughnuts, slices of pizza and Dreamsicles, and LuLu teaching herself to open the refrigerator door and cans of Pepsi, it was difficult to monitor her junk-food intake.
