Family Dog Saves 7 Year Old From Tsunami

[CVX]

CHINNAKALAPET, INDIA (AP) -- "Run away!" her husband screamed from a rooftop after he spotted the colossal waves.

The command was simple, but it presented Sangeeta with a dilemma: She had three sons, and only two arms.

She grabbed the youngest two and ran -- figuring the oldest, 7-year-old Dinakaran, had the best chance of outrunning the tsunami churning toward her home.

But Dinakaran didn't follow. He headed for the safest place he knew, the small family hut just 40 yards from the seashore.

Sangeeta thought she would never see him again. The family dog saw to it that she did.

While water lapped at Sangeeta's heels as she rushed up the hill, the scruffy yellow dog named Selvakumar ducked into the hut after Dinakaran. Nipping and nudging, he did everything in his power to get the boy up the hill.

Sangeeta, who like many in southern India only uses one name, had no idea of the drama unfolding below. Once she had crossed the main road to safety she collapsed into tears, screaming over the loss of her eldest son.

"I had heard from others that the wall of my house had collapsed, I felt sure that my child had died," said the mother, 24.

Dinakaran credits the dog, which often escorts him to and from school, with saving his life.

"That dog grabbed me by the collar of my shirt," the boy said from under some trees at Pondicherry University, where the family is waiting for relief. "He dragged me out."

Sangeeta said she wept with joy when she saw her son walk up, with Selvakumar by his side.

The Tamils of south India believe that talking about the death of a living person can make it so, so Sangeeta didn't want to speculate how she would have felt had her son not survived.

She did say that she believes some special spirit, perhaps her brother-in-law's, resides in the yellow dog. Sangeeta's brother-in-law gave her the puppy, after the birth of her second son. When the brother-in-law died in an accident two years ago, they changed the dog's name to his.

"That dog is my God," said Sangeeta -- with Dinakaran sitting on the ground at her feet and Selvakumar sleeping on the warm asphalt next to him.

© 2005 Star Tribune.

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