For one toddler in Colorado, parrots may displace dogs as man’s best friend. Willie the parrot warned his owner that a nearby baby was choking by repeating, “Mama, baby,” when the woman left the room and the toddler started to choke on her breakfast.
All was fine after the woman performed the Heimlich maneuver, but she gives credit to the parrot for the baby’s life. Willie was recognized on Friday with an Animal Lifesaver Award at an event called the Breakfast of Champions, attended by both the governor of Colorado and the mayor of Denver.
Willie’s call is just the latest in a string of heroic acts by non-humans—there was Buddy the German shepherd who called 911 last year when his owner began having a seizure (and is not the only dog to have done so), and a pod of dolphins who rescued a surfer from a great white shark. (Nor was that a unique incident.)
So given that animals are showing such a knack for rescuing us from our own sticky situations, maybe we should put them in charge of AIG.
Related Content:
Discoblog: The Top 5 Nuttiest Animal Rescue Missions Ever Performed
Image: Flickr / TCL 1961
March 24th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
That is NOT an acurate picture of the little Quaker parrot that was honored in this story.
March 24th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j1y4_C-CEf2O5mMV4uA19c96oJlAD973UN300 This is the correct picture.
March 24th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Cathie,
Thank you for pointing out the inaccurate representation of Willie in the above picture. We would have liked to use a photo of the real Willie, but most images are copyrighted. We would consider changing, but the link you posted seems to lead only to a map of Colorado.
March 25th, 2009 at 8:52 am
Willie is a Quaker Parakeet (aka Monk Parakeet), a native of South America. They have established large colonies of the birds in some US cities. Google Images can provide pages and pages of images, some of them available for your use. The bird you show is an old-world species from the group that includes ring-necked, derbyan, mustache and plum headed parakeet (I’m not sure what that particular bird in the photo is).
Bird lovers (and parrot lovers in particular) will read this story and we know the difference. It’s better to run no picture than to run the wrong one. (yes, I know this is a trivial issue given the world today, but it’s always best to be accurate.)
April 24th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Quit whining nerd.