The Associated Press

BATESVILLE, Ark.—When Mary Smith rescued a crippled rat terrier, she didn’t know that random act of kindness would come back to save the lives of her husband and herself.

The dog, named Tripod, was about to be taken to either the animal shelter or the humane society, but Smith decided to take her in.

Now she loves that rat terrier more than ever.

At 3 a.m. one recent morning, Tripod began pulling at Smith and barking, alerting her that there was trouble in the house.

Smith awoke to find her bedroom in flames and realized that she had to get her husband, John, out of the house.

But John’s wheelchair was already burning.

Smith went into the hallway and got her wheelchair. Picking her husband up, she wheeled him to safety with Tripod by her side.

“She would not leave me until I got out and once I got him out, she was fine,” Smith said.

Smith was back at the scene of the fire later in the day, surveying the damage. Almost all the photos of her mother and father were gone, as was the first dollar bill her father ever made.

“I lost my mom and dad’s pictures,” Smith said through tears. “I tried to get the kids to make copies of them but they hadn’t done it yet.”

The electric wheelchair that John used was destroyed and the diabetic shoes that Smith had just purchased were gone, too.

Smith realized that the Easter baskets she had made for her grandchildren were destroyed as well. Smith said she now understands the pain others feel after a fire.

“I never knew what people were going through until this happened,” Smith said. “I’ve helped burned-out people before, but I didn’t know.”

The couple had only lived in the house for three months and had no insurance.

“We had just talked about getting fire insurance, but Johnny had another spell and his health is the most important thing to me,” Smith said.

John suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, dementia and asthma. Smith suffers from some of the same ailments and neither was able to save their medicines.

“I had just laid the medicines across the bed,” Smith said.

However, not everything was lost in the fire.

As Smith walked through the house she found the last photo taken of her father, T.D. Penn, in its frame on a coffee table in the corner of the living room. Everything in the house was black with ashes, but this frame, while dusty, still shone with bright colors.

The couple may also be able to salvage their washer and dryer and the cookstove, as well as a television that was in the front of the house.

For now, some friends, Ruthie and Arnold Broadus, are allowing the couple to stay at their home until a mobile home the Broaduses had planned to move into becomes available. They are allowing the Smiths to get first tabs on the new mobile home.

“They were asked, ’Are you sure you don’t want it?’ and they said, ’No, give it to Mary and Johnny,”’ Smith said.