Eloy firefighters save little dog in house fire

ELOY, Ariz. (KSAZ) - Pictures show Eloy firefighters working to save the life of a 2-year-old dog named Tucker after he was pulled from a house fire last Thursday afternoon.

"I picked him up, and we took him outside and he took a couple of gasps for air, and so we said we need to get him some oxygen and get working on him," Capt. Derrick Ethington, of the Eloy Fire Department, said. "I took him to the back of the ambulance and started working on him."

Fire crews were told by neighbors there was a dog inside. They searched the smoke-filled home and found Tucker in the laundry room in the home. He was covered in soot and nearly lifeless.

"He didn't have much more time," Capt. Ethington said. "When we pulled him out, for all intents and purposes, he was gone. He was taking his last breaths."

They rushed Tucker to a vet, where his owner Trudy Craig met them after getting a call from neighbors.

"I kept screaming 'Is he alive?'" she said. "That's all I could think about."

"I run to the truck and Tucker was in the backseat and he just popped up, and I think I grabbed him," she said.

She says she can't say enough to the crew who worked so hard to save her best friend and loyal companion.

"I love my dog, but what they did, I mean it's, I don't even know how to thank them," she said.

Now Tucker, a Lhasa-Apso and Poodle mix, has become somewhat of a mascot at the fire station.

"We were just talking about that, it's not the same dog, it's amazing," Capt. Ethington said. "He's running around the station and we're talking, it's amazing to me."

The family has set up a GoFundMe to help replace everything they've lost. You can donate by clicking here.