CPNII President Shirley Beer Powell (above left) presents South Metro Fire Rescue firefighter Gretta Flatt with certificates for pet resuscitation masks for all stations in Douglas County. Shoshana Powell (below) tries on the pet mask at CPN’s Fire Station 36.

by Terri Wiebold

“Burn my house down…destroy all of my property…just save my babies! My animals are my children,” said Castle Pines North resident and true pet lover Shirley Beer Powell. Powell and her husband Ralph live in Greenbriar with their two cats (Micki and Charlie) and their three dogs (Darby, Keller, and Shoshana), all of which are special needs animals adopted from the Denver Dumb Friends League.

Powell feels so passionately about her pets that she has taken steps to make sure they have the best care available in case of an emergency. Powell purchased two sets of pet resuscitation masks for South Metro Fire Rescue (SMFR) Fire Station 36, located at 421 Castle Pines Parkway, and worked with the Best Friends Pet Care program who matched her donation with another two sets of masks.

“I have done everything I can on my end to ensure my animals are safe – from installing a smoke detector attached to our alarm system so that the fire station is immediately notified if it goes off, to placing pet rescue stickers at my front door,” said Powell. “Now I want to make sure the first responders have all the equipment they need to do their jobs. My goal is to see that every South Metro Fire Rescue station in the county is outfitted with pet resuscitation masks,” she said. And that is exactly what Powell has done.

Each set of masks contains three resuscitation devices of different sizes to fit most dogs, cats and small animals and costs $50. Powell presented the crew at SMFR Station 36 with the pet masks on February 26, along with enough money in donations to purchase two sets of masks for every SMFR station in Douglas County, including the ice rescue teams.

“This is just outstanding,” said Andy Lyon, Public affairs Director for SMFR. “We did not expect this generosity, but we certainly do appreciate it. We hope to never have to take these masks out of the box, but it is nice to know we will have them at all of our stations if we need them.”

SMFR firefighter of 21 years, Gretta Flatt, an avid animal lover preparing to go to paramedic school, had this to say about the donations: “Our intent here now is that we will be going around to all the stations and training our personnel to use this equipment,” she said. “It absolutely has the potential to benefit animals in emergency situations.”

Carla Crabtree is the manager of Best Friends Pet Care in Wheatridge and was on hand at Station 36 to give a demonstration of how the masks work and to help present SMFR with the donations. “Shirley has been such an awesome spokesperson for the cause,” said Crabtree. “She has put a lot of work into getting masks for this community. We matched the donations, but she did all the work.”

Special thanks to Lone Tree Veterinary Medical Center, The Pet Stuff Place in the Safeway Shopping Center, The Flower Shop at Castle Pines, The Kiker Team – Keller Williams Realty at DTC, the Powell family for their generous contributions to this cause, and to Shirley Beer Powell for her efforts in bringing this program to our community.

For more information about the Best Friends Pet Care resuscitation mask matching program, visit
www.bestfriendspetcare.com.