By:Jonann Brady
Not fearing for a moment that Sebastian was rabid, Rick Cohen stuck his finger in the mutt's mouth. The three-year-old's strong jaws clamped down his finger. Cohen called to his wife Bonnie to bring him a piece of wood in order to pry open the dog's mouth. In the meantime, Sebastian fell to the ground, rolled over, and for all intents and purposes, played dead.
Launching into action, Cohen stuck his hand down Sebastian's throat and pulled out a large chunk of apple.
Sebastian's tongue, bearing a disturbing blue tint, lolled out of his mouth. The dog did not breathe.
"I was thinking, what should I do?" said Cohen. "I decided to do mouth-to-mouth. It was bizarre."
Cohen had taken a first-aid CPR course 14 years ago when his first daughter was born. The training stuck with him, including the lesson that when administering CPR to a dog, always cover the mouth and breathe into the nose.
But in this case, Cohen had to improvise.
"He's a French bulldog, he has no nose. It's all crushed," explained Cohen.
Ever intrepid, Cohen administered regular CPR and breathed into Sebastian's mouth for about a minute and a half. Bonnie Cohen was inside dialing 911. It turned out that back up wasn't necessary.
"Just like in the movies, he started coughing. Then he tensed up and then went completely limp," said Cohen.
Sebastian sat motionless for about a half an hour, then shaking off his brush with death, began wrestling with his buddy Luther, the Cohen's German shepard.
While Sebastian seems to have forgotten the ordeal, a bitter taste still lingers in Cohen's mouth.
"It's funny. I hate apples. I hate 'em," he said. "The mouth-to-mouth with the dog was fine. The apple gave me the heebie-jeebies."
