Julia, a three-year-old girl from Poland, was saved by a stray dog, who firefighters say saved the girl from freezing after she wandered from her home overnight.

Julia is believed to have walked to a forest near her home in the village of Pierzwin, and temperatures reached below absolute zero.

Over 200 people searched for the three-year-old overnight when firefighters finally found her as she cried for her mother.

Grzegorz Szymanski, one of the firefighters who found Julia, said that if it had not been for the dog, the girl likely would not have survived the night.

“For the whole night the animal was with the girl, it never left her. Remember, it was 5 degrees below zero and the child was wet," he told BBC.

“This dog is the most important part of this story, he is a hero. It is thanks to this dog that the girl survived the night.

We ran around 500 meters, and there was silence. We stood to listen further and we heard the dog and later the crying of a child. We went in the direction and saw the child lying in the shrubs; she was wet because there was water in the forest.” Szymanski continued, reports the Daily Mail.

Julia is now in a local hospital in Poland, and being treated for frostbite.

Kazimiera Barczyk, the head of the pediatric ward, spoke about the significant impact of the stray dog and Julia’s condition.

“This dog, which was with her most probably kept her warm. It lay down next to her when she fell asleep. She was walking and walking, and fell asleep when she got tired.

The child was brought just before eight o'clock, at the beginning she was scared of people, and she was in shock. At the moment her mother is going through a lot of stress.”

This is certainly not the first case where a dog saved a human.

In 2007, a Chihuahua, Zoey, saved the life of a one-year-old boy by fighting a rattlesnake that tried to attack him in Colorado. The boy was bathing outside when he caught the attention of the snake.

The chihuahua was bitten by the snake in the scuffle. The boy’s grandfather, Monty Long, told the Seattle Times, "She [the dog] got in between the snake and Booker, and that's when I heard her yipe."

Luckily Zoey survived and made a rapid recovery, and the one-year-old was unharmed thanks to his pet. 

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