A dog belonging to a Kansas family has been credited with saving lives after a massive house fire broke out over the weekend. Sarah Potter was asleep early Sunday morning when her pet pooch, Buster, started jumping on her and barking frantically.
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“I was napping on the couch and heard him bark,” the Hutchinson native told KSNW-TV of her ordeal.
Coming around from a deep sleep, Potter was convinced that her dog must be barking at someone arriving at the door.
“At first, I thought it was my boyfriend coming in,” she said.
But it was only when she ventured into the rest of the house to investigate that she realized the true reason for Buster’s desperate cries.
“I went to the back part of the house, and the whole back end of my house was just on fire,” she told KSNW. “My daughter’s room was next and that’s when I grabbed her.”
She noted that there were “flames all around the ceiling, walls and floor.”
The Hutchinson Fire Department responded to the emergency within minutes, and managed to get the flames under control. They are now trying to determine the source of the fire, which was discovered to have originated in the kitchen.
Thankfully, Sarah, her daughter and buster managed to escape the inferno. Heartbreakingly, however, the family lost all their possessions, including the gifts that had been purchased ahead of Christmas.
“I’m hurt and sad because I’ve lost everything that’s in that house from fire or smoke damage,” Potter told KSNW. “My daughter doesn’t even got a pair of shoes, and we got about one outfit to wear.”
“All the Christmas presents… everything we bought for the kids are gone,” she added. “They were in the basement and burned. I worked hard for those gifts.”
But despite losing almost everything in the blaze, Sarah is full of gratitude that she and her daughter were spared, and is stunned that it all came down to Buster’s protective instincts.
“I’d never knew the dog would save my life,” she said. “He literally saved me and my family’s life from a fire.”
A friend of the family has set up a GoFundMe campaign to try and raise some funds for Sarah and her daughter ahead of Christmas. Over $2,000 has already been raised, and messages of support have been pouring in on the page.
“Your pup reminds me of my dearly missed dog Sammie who I treasured and spent many Christmases with,” one person wrote on the page. “May God bless you and your family. Don’t lose hope, God always provides, keep the faith.”
“May the joy of the season be returned to you,” another posted. “Thank God for your dog.”
Do pray for this family as they figure out how to move forward from this dreadful incident.