Hero Marian Morris

In Arkadelphia, AR, in 2006, retired nurse Marian Morris became a minor hero and temporary celebrity, at least to animal fanciers. Her unlikely good deed was saving the life of an apparently drowned chicken, Boo Boo by name, by mouth-to-beak resuscitation.

She reported blowing into the unfortunate critter's beak and seeing its eyes pop open, then shut again. She repeated the unsavory procedure, and Boo Boo was placed in a box in the sunshine. Thereupon, Morris' sister-in-law began reading from the Bible--about Lazarus returning from the dead. So did Boo Boo, who ended up not on the dinner table, but on the Leno Show.

A year earlier, roughly the same thing had happened in Collbran, CO, where Eugene Safken combined mouth-to-beak with swinging the victim around by its feet until the chicken revived and lived to cackle again.

Mouth-to-snout stories also have surfaced. In 2005, Salem, MA, firefighter Richard LeBlanc saved Pixie the terrier in this manner after pulling her from her burning home. Also, in 2009, Prince the poodle was revived after having been hit by a car. Enjoying temporary celebrity this time was neighbor Timothy Dehning.

Such heroics come with a very high yuck factor, of course, but they are heroic just the same.