Heat wave | A dog saves a woman in a forest in Verdun

“I don’t want to take credit because my dog ​​did everything,” Mario Trottier prefaces with a smile in his voice. On Thursday afternoon, the retired firefighter was walking his goldendoodle, Archie, in the gardens of the Douglas Institute in Verdun. The 6-year-old dog was walking without a leash when he and his owner went into the woods bordering the property.

“He was walking quietly next to me and suddenly he started running as if he felt something,” says Mario Trottier. The retired firefighter followed his dog, which started barking from deep in the forest.

It was only when Mario Trottier approached his dog that he saw a woman lying on the ground through the branches. “I heard the lady crying a little. I think she was dead, but the barking of the dog woke her up,” he opines.

The former first responder attempted to assess the woman’s condition, estimating her to be in her 50s. “She was so confused, she actually had symptoms of what we call heat stroke,” he says. Mario Trottier then called 911 and left his dog with the woman to get help, who took care of her.

a fortune”

In Montreal, it’s illegal to walk your dog off-leash unless you’re in a dog park, a rule Mario Trottier says he understands well. “Archie often goes off-leash when we go out and about. In the city I am careful, but when we are isolated I take advantage of it,” he asserts.

According to the former firefighter, letting Archie off the leash could have saved a life. “If he was a holdover, we would never have gone that route, and there aren’t many people going that route,” he adds, describing the rescue operation as a “conspiracy”.

Mario Trottier was unable to identify the woman he found, “but if it wasn’t Archie, I’m sure she would have been in more trouble”, who did not hide his pride in the face of his dog’s achievement. “Today is really his day,” he says.