musher loses race saves life

[Lee Borgersen]

   .....  Local musher loses race, saves life


March 14, 2012

  -- A Chicago dog-musher didn't win the epic Iditarod sled dog race in Alaska this week but in losing he saved a boy's life.


Former firefighter Pat Moon of Park Ridge, IL a cancer survivor, provided first aid to a boy on Sunday who was hurt in a sledding accident in Ruby, Alaska.

Moon's dog team was in bad shape after tough winter training, and he had just scratched himself from the race at the ruby checkpoint. That's when a woman came in and said her son had smashed his head after hitting a parked snow machine.

"I was at the right place at the right time," said Moon. "Any one of them would have done it. I just happened to be the one who scratched."

Moon went with a relative to the house 15 minutes away by snowmobile.

He relied on his EMT training to clean the wound and stopped the bleeding. The family says Moon saved a life.