CPR Saves Squirrel Because College Student Binged On ‘The Office’

MOUNT PLEASANT, MI — It has never been said that for every time a college student binge watches “The Office” on Netflix, a squirrel gets a second chance at life. But perhaps it should. A squirrel on the Central Michigan University campus in Mount Pleasant is alive, and it’s all because Natalie Belsito couldn’t get enough of the sitcom.

In particular, the Grand Rapids freshman was hooked on “Stress Relief,” an episode in which the gang at the fictional paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, take a CPR lesson.

Belsito used the technique to save a drowning squirrel and posted a video on Twitter that has been viewed more than 33,300 times.

She and her women’s soccer teammates spied the squirrel struggling to swim in a pond below one of the player’s dorm window on March 27.

"I couldn't just leave it, you know?" Belsito told Central Michigan Life, the student newspaper. “It definitely was drowning because it was really slow when we saw it and it started to dip its head under the water.”

She tried to pull the squirrel out of the water with a hockey stick, but had no luck. A guy walking by pulled the squirrel out by the tail, but not gently. The squirrel went airborne and smacked down hard on the cement.

That’s when Belsito decided to perform CPR, singing the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive,” as she alternated chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to the tempo of the disco hit, just as “The Office” characters do

“Honestly, when I was doing it, I was thinking of the episode of ‘The Office’ when they do CPR. I was literally singing that song as I tried to do it.”

The squirrel came to after about an hour. It was still cold and wet, so Belsito and her teammates snuck it into her dorm room, where they warmed it with a hair dryer.

They weren’t sure what to expect when the squirrel was released, but it all ended well.

Once Belsito and her teammates opened the box, “it sprung up and ran up the tree.”

Here’s the video:

Photo via Shutterstock