Teen swimmers use CPR to revive drowning prairie dog

Oct. 4 (UPI) -- A pair of young Colorado swimmers came to the rescue of a drowning prairie dog and saved its life with CPR techniques.

Wolfgang Dittrich, head coach at Flatiron Swimming, said the team was practicing at the Arapahoe YMCA in Lafayette when teenagers Teagan Mayer and Grace Keogh spotted the prairie dog at the bottom of the pool.

Dittrich said Mayer jumped into the water and tossed the prairie dog out onto the deck, and she and Keogh then took turns performing chest compressions on the animal.

The coach said he was shocked when the prairie dog started to move, and after a few seconds water came out of its nose and mouth and it started shaking.

The girls flipped the prairie dog onto its legs and the animal coughed up some water and scurried away.

"Sometimes I think this generation might get a bad rap," Dittrich told the Boulder Daily Camera, "but they also do really grateful and empowering things."

Jason Clay, a spokesman for Colorado Parks and Wildlife's northeast region, said the agency does not recommend giving CPR to wild animals.

"The best thing you can do would be to call your local animal control. Do not touch or feed wild animals and do not allow your pets to interact with them," he said.

YMCA of Northern Colorado applauded the rescue in a Facebook post.

"We know a lot of you love (or tolerate) our prairie dog friends at the Arapahoe Y," the post said.