Pet dog saves trio from blaze
IT WAS 3.15am and “Ah Girl” kept barking at Toh Hoe Hup, as he lay sleeping, and was running back and forth from the bed to the window.
Toh, 60, got out of bed and upon pulling aside the curtains, he was stunned by the sight of ferocious flames leaping upwards.
As he rushed to rouse his wife and alert his son, he scooped up his terrier and, together, they fled down the back stairs of their two-storey shophouse – to safety.
The early morning fire last Thursday gutted the Ang Mo Kio shophouse the Toh family had been living in for 28 years.
Toh owns a sundry shop on the ground floor, and he estimates his losses to be about S$100,000 (RM223,157). But his thoughts were on how Ah Girl saved his family’s lives as he showered his pet dog with doggy treats and biscuits.
He said in Mandarin: “Ah Girl was barking continuously and when I woke up, I saw her running repeatedly to my bed and then to the window of the opposite wall, as if beckoning me to look out of the window.”
Toh lived on the second floor of the shophouse with his wife, Neo Siew Guat, 55, and son Damon, 24.
Said Damon, a civil servant: “I was playing computer games in my room, and had my earphones on with the sound on. I did not hear Ah Girl barking.
“We also did not smell anything burning as our air-conditioners were on. I was so shocked and ran out with my parents.”
The fire started at a neighbouring shop which sold incense and joss sticks, said the police.
For Toh, the fire has left him with mixed feelings: “We have been living in the shophouse for 28 years. Now, my home and my business are gone.
“It hurts, yet I am grateful that we are alive. If not for Ah Girl alerting us, we may not be here at all.” – The Straits Times/Asia News Network
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