Two Virginia dogs are being hailed as heroes after they tragically lost their lives in a house fire right after they saved a 10-year-old boy, according to local authorities.
Dinwiddie Fire Department received a call Monday that there was a fully inflamed residential fire with a child and two dogs still stuck inside, according to a Facebook post from Dinwiddie Fire & EMS.
As emergency crews were on their way to the scene, the units received an update that the child had managed to escape the fire and was safe at a nearby house.
When the units arrived the child told police that he had been sleeping but his two dogs began pouncing on him to wake up, alerting him to the fire.
“He was asleep and his two dogs came into his room and started jumping up and down and pawing at him at his chest and that woke him up,” Dinwiddie Fire Chief Dennis Hale said, according to WTVR.
“Those two dogs are heroes.”
The two brindle pitbulls did not survive and rescue workers located the dogs during a search. (RELATED: REPORT: Woman Dies After Running Back Into Burning Home To Save Her Animals)
Hale said firefighters weren’t thinking about the fire as they headed toward the trailer.
“The whole time you’re responding, you know the comments are, ‘there’s a child in the residence’,” Hale said, according to the report.
The boy was taken to VCU Medical Center for smoke inhalation and is expected to recover, according to the report.