Tot Saves Lizard From Fire

FT. MEYERS, FL -- Firefighters are crediting a 4-year-old Florida boy with saving his huge pet lizard from certain death.

The boy called for help as soon as he noticed smoke coming from the lizard's tank.

A heating lamp had fallen into the tank and ignited some papers inside.

Firefighters quickly arrived to douse the flames, then found the three-foot long monitor lizard inside.

The lizard, named Rex, was not breathing and had charring and soot inside its nostrils and mouth.

"I was thinking a little that he was dead," said Rex's owner, Aiden. "They put the mask on him and gave him some oxygen."

Naples Firefighter Travis Wright, a reptile owner, held the lizard's mouth open while a paramedic cleared the pet's obstructed airway then put an oxygen mask designed for domestic animals on its face.

"Aiden wasn't going to let him out of his sights, he kept rubbing him and petting him," said Wright.

He says the lizard came around a short time later.

Firefighters say the lamp ignited some paper near the tank when it fell.