6 days ago
Beau the Doberman has burn wounds but she's OK; teen who helped save dog from arson fire meets grateful owner
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The story on Donna Avenue, in central Bakersfield, is this: a house mostly intact, a family alive and grateful, a frightened dog reassured, and a Bakersfield Driller hailed as a hero.
It was Monday night, around 10:30 p.m., when a series of fires broke out in the alley behind David Stewart's house on Donna Avenue. The family safely scrambled out the front door, but Stewart went back inside to grab some things. That's when he looked out the window at the orange hellscape in his backyard and came to the only conclusion possible – his young Doberman, Beau, was dead.
Nothing could have survived that inferno.
'I'm thinking, 'our dog's dead…why? They burned down the house, they saw the dog, they still lit the fire, our dog's dead,'' Stewart said. 'I don't understand it.'
What he didn't know at the time was that three men had come to the rescue. One of them, Demien Garcia – a Bakersfield High School senior – who had sprinted two blocks to see what he could do to help. He found Beau trapped under debris, the fire mere feet away.
Garcia kicked down the backyard fence and started trying to free the dog.
'It was pretty hard,' he said. 'I was playing tug of war with the chain. So, the fire was getting really close, the electrical pole was on fire. I knew I was on a time stamp.'
About that time, two freelance photo journalists, Jacob Davidson and Eric Isbell, came tearing down the alley to gather news video. When they saw Garcia frantically doing – something – they abandoned their camera and pitched in. The three of them managed to cut the dog's collar off and free her from the chain lead, which had become pinned under debris.
Beau is alright now, but Monday night she was in a lot of trouble and the scars are still evident on her backside.
All's well that ends well – although Bakersfield Fire investigators are still looking into what appears to be arson. Davidson said he showed them video he took of a man on a bicycle, dressed in all black, who seemed out of place and in a hurry.
Here's that man righting a knocked-over garage bin as a fire captain drives past.
Meanwhile, 26-year-old David Stewart and 18-year-old Demien Garcia have restored each other's faith in the world.
Stewart said, 'He saved a family member.'
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