About 24 hours after an Australian woman rushed into a brushfire to save a struggling koala, the two have been reunited.
Toni Doherty was given a “hero’s welcome” at the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital for saving the marsupial, which was subsequently named Lewis after one of Doherty’s seven grandchildren.
“He had had flames up on his back legs, so I just covered him with my t-shirt, managed to get him off the tree and it was so hot and just run to, where it was more open,” Doherty told CBS. “I knew if we didn’t get him down from the tree then he would have been up there amongst the flames.”
Lewis is too badly burned to be released back into the wild so he will more than likely join a breeding program.
Koalas injured in brushfires continues to be an issue as the hospital has seen 14 koalas with burns in the month of November alone.