Those wacky Belgians

From the Reuters newswire:

Man gives koi kiss of life

A former ambulance driver has put his first aid skills to good use at a weekend birthday party by reviving one of his pond fish with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, a local newspaper says.

And Leo Van Aert is so happy about having saved the life of his cherished koi that he wants to name it after one of his grandchildren, the Gazet Van Antwerpen said on Tuesday.

Van Aert, 57, was hosting a party at his home near the Belgian port of Antwerp when his wife noticed the koi -- a spotted Japanese carp -- floating on the surface of the garden pond.

The 60-centimetre-long fish had been “acting funny”, swimming and jumping frantically before stopping dead in the water.

Van Aert figured the koi had had a heart attack and took it out of the water to try to resuscitate it, giving it heart massages before joining lips with the fish.

“First, I applied heart massages to the fish,” he said. “That’s when I picked him up and applied mouth-mouth.

“After 15 minutes, the fish started to move again so I put him in the pond…but when he fell over again I again applied mouth-to-mouth and heart massages.

“That’s when the fish recovered,” he added.