Hop-pily ever after: Bernie the kangaroo joey brought back to life by his rescuer with a kiss

By TED THORNHILL

Claws for thought: Bernie can consider himself the luckiest kangaroo alive after being brought back to life by Lisa Milligan


A baby kangaroo was brought back from the dead after being given the kiss of life by a wildlife carer.

So young that it hadn’t even grown hair yet, the joey - the name given to baby kangaroos - was rushed to a rescue centre after it was found lying lifeless by the side of a road near Melbourne, Australia.

The tiny pink animal was cold to the touch, but Lisa Milligan didn’t give up hope. She breathed air down its nose and mouth and massaged its heart until it suddenly came to.

‘It was gone for all love and money. It wasn’t breathing. It was icy to touch and rigid,’ Ms Milligan told Australia’s Herald Sun newspaper.


I love roo: Bernie gives his saviour, Lisa Milligan an affectionate nibble


‘But I kept going and after 15 minutes, it suddenly barked, which is what they do. And it started turning from a lifeless grey colour to perfect pink again.’

Ms Milligan has settled on calling the four-month-old creature Bernie, having concluded that naming him Lucky would be plain unlucky.

‘I think Bernie will suit him, after the movie Weekend At Bernie's,’ she told the paper.

He was found by the side of a road next to his dead mother, who had been killed by a collision with a car.

Ms Milligan, who works at the Wildlife Rescue Centre at Kilmore, near Melbourne, explained that a passer-by had dragged the body of the adult to the side of the road so that his daughter would be spared from seeing it on her journey to school the next day.


In the pink: Bernie has been given a blanket that matches his colouring to nestle in


It was then that he noticed the joey lying worryingly still not far away.

Praying that there was a hope he could be saved, the kind-hearted motorist dashed to the wildlife centre, where Ms Milligan saved him.

Kangaroos are particularly vulnerable near roads as engine noise and bright headlights surprise them and cause the energetic creatures to bound into oncoming traffic.

Such is the damage a kangaroo can cause a car that many are fitted with protective ‘roo bars’.

Sadly, because joeys travel in the pouches of their mothers, they too are often victims of collisions.


source: dailymail