Fox 13A Florida dog gave his life to prevent the deaths of his entire family in a house fire.
It was 2am (GMT-4) on Tuesday morning (September 17). The Butler family were fast asleep in their home in Bradenton, when a blaze broke out in their attic.
As the fire spread through the family’s home, the alarm did ring – but only for a short while.
Check out the news report below:
As reported by Fox 13, home owner Leroy Butler said:
It only lasted a short ‘beep beep’ and then it was already on fire. It was gone.
The blaze raged on, consuming furniture and setting the ceiling alight – and the family were none the wiser, after their faulty alarm stopped.
Enter the superhero: Zippy the dog. Sensing the danger around him, he ran around the house, barking like crazy, in a bid to alert his family to the fire.
Fox 13Butler explained:
He was back and forth. He was from bed to bed, back and forth.
The Jack Russell terrier was determined and continued to run back through the inferno to try and get his family out of the house.
The Bradenton Fire Department said the fire spread from the attic, near the air conditioning unit – however, the root of the blaze is still unknown.
Fortunately, all the family got out. ‘They wouldn’t move. All they could do was scream and holler, ‘No! No! No!’ Butler said.
Their family home is now a loss. Leroy and his children buried Zippy this morning @FOX13News #Bradenton pic.twitter.com/AS7sAdb12i
— Kim Kuizon FOX 13 (@kkuizon) September 17, 2019
There was one member missing: Zippy. Leroy tried to go back in to get him, but the fire had become too large.
Butler explained:
The floor in the living room was all on fire so there was nowhere for him to run out. Even if the smoke was this high. He was a short little dog. There was nowhere for him to go.
He had no choice but to wait for the firefighters to extinguish the blaze. When they finally got to Zippy, it was too late – the smoke had killed him.
Tragically, the family are now without their home, their dog and any photos to remember the good times they had together.
Leroy Butler surveys the damage to his parent’s home in Bradenton. A fire broke out around 2. When the smoke alarm died, their dog went room to room to make sure the family was up. Unfortunately Zippy didn’t make it. The fire trapped him in the home @FOX13News #Bradenton pic.twitter.com/lJ3Yv4WCvW
— Kim Kuizon FOX 13 (@kkuizon) September 17, 2019
Butler added:
We adopted him as a pet, so we can only, I can only say he was a good dog. He only did what he could.
He would let me know if someone was outside. With the smoke, he still did his job. That’s just one thing and one person that I couldn’t save and one person I couldn’t get to.
A good boy right till the very end. Rest easy, Zippy.
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After graduating from Glasgow Caledonian University with an NCTJ and BCTJ-accredited Multimedia Journalism degree, Cameron ventured into the world of print journalism at The National, while also working as a freelance film journalist on the side, becoming an accredited Rotten Tomatoes critic in the process. He’s now left his Scottish homelands and took up residence at UNILAD as a journalist.