“Thank God that box was very strong!”
Earlier this week, Yasmin Saraiva was at home in Guarulhos, Brazil, when she heard a commotion on the street outside her apartment window. She looked down to see a small crowd was gathered, gazing up in her direction.
The crowd alerted Saraiva that her upstairs neighbor’s dog was in serious danger.
Turns out, the dog had passed through an open top story window that’s covered in a protective netting. Though the netting is secured across at the base of the window, it’s more sparsely attached up top.
The dog was stuck — sandwiched between the netting and a shutter — and in a panic, she unfortunately began to climb.
Realizing that the dog, named Alicinha, had reached an opening at the top of the netting and was at risk of falling, Saraiva sprang into action.
“I didn’t think, I just acted,” Saraiva told The Dodo. “I looked around and found a box.”
Here’s dramatic footage of what happened next:
“Thank God that box was very strong!” Saraiva said. “It managed to hold the dog.”
Saraiva had caught her — and thankfully, little Alicinha escaped the situation completely unharmed.
“She became my friend as if nothing had happened,” Saraiva told a local news outlet. “It almost gave me a heart attack. But she just sat there in my living room and stared at the TV.”
Elsewhere, Saraiva’s actions weren’t so quickly glossed over.
“A true hero!” one commenter on the video wrote.
“What an example of courage and compassion,” another wrote. “The world needs more people like this!”
According to Saraiva, Alicinha is doing well and has since been reunited with her owner.
