Woman Credits Dog With Saving Her From Mobile Home Fire

MORRISON, Tenn. (CBS Local) — A Tennessee woman credits her dog for saving her life by helping her escape a mobile home fire.

Cherrie Fletcher said her beloved rottweiler, Hopi Grace, started barking in her face on Jan. 13, which woke her up to smoke.

"Without Hopi, I don't think I'd have made it, Fletcher told WTVF. "I could have had a heart attack and died in there."

Fletcher said she fell on tough times a couple of weeks ago.

"I went through strokes and the doctor fixed the ankle, and then on Saturday I broke the wrist, and then the house burnt on Sunday," she said.

Fletcher said she was able to get in her wheelchair and attach Hopi's collar to a leash.

"She just jerked me out and knocked the door open with her nose, and out on the porch we went," she said.

Unfortunately, Fletcher's other rottweiler and her blind cat, Pinto Beans, did not survive the fire, which she said was caused by an electric wiring malfunction.

Fletcher says she lived in the mobile home for 28 years.

"Due to the age of her double-wide mobile home no one would insure it, leaving her with a total loss," wrote Sherry Rosales, Fletcher's daughter, on a GoFundMe page set up to help her mother raise money to buy a new mobile home.

"For a single wide mobile home to put back in there, and it's one of them FEMA homes, it's $30,000, on a $750 income, you can't pay for that," Fletcher said.

Fletcher is also having trouble finding an apartment that take rottweilers, but says there's no way she would ever part with Hopi.