RED BANK: MOUSE OWNER SPARES NO EXPENSE FOR PET INJURED IN FIRE

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A post shared by Chris Mouse Brown🤎 (@chrisbrown_lopez)

By BRIAN DONOHUE

His name is Chris Brown, but unlike the famous dude with that name, he’s got zero hit records and has never faced a felony assault charge. This Chris Brown just liked to spend his days nibbling cheese and running on a little wheel in his Red Bank apartment.

Until November 24, that is, when a fire tore through the Oakland Street apartment that Chris Brown, a small mouse, shared with his human owner, Liana Lopez, one of about ten people left homeless by the blaze.

In the weeks since firefighters rescued the soaked and soggy mouse and delivered him to a distraught Lopez’s arms, she has spared no expense in trying to help him recover from illness and injuries sustained in the blaze.

As the mouse undergoes treatment for smoke inhalation, he’s proving an unlikely source of hope for Lopez and other residents as they try to rebound from the devastating loss of their homes.

“I’m homeless now and all of my stuff completely burned,” Lopez said in a text message to redbankgreen. Her pet mouse, she says, “Is all I have left.”

Chris Brown, moments after his rescue by firefighters from a blaze at 39 Oakland Street.

Of course, it goes without saying that the human lives and concerns remain paramount in the wake of the fire.

To that end, there are multiple GoFundMe accounts set up for residents of the duplex who lost everything in the blaze. There’s one for the Hernandez family here. And another for Sam and Walter Jones is here.

Since our last update on the fire victims, multiple fund drives have been launched for Misael and Verenice, a husband and wife who lived in the Oakland Street duplex for 22 years. Daniel Iannuzzi, who organized one drive called Verenice “a living saint” who has been left homeless.

Firefighters pull Chris Brown’s ash-covered aquarium from the November 24 fire on Oakland Street.

And now there’s one, of course, for Chris Brown. Or at least partly for Chris Brown, as the growing vet bills are only a small portion of the expenses Lopez and her longtime friend and roommate (and nephew of Misael and Verenice) Adrian will need to cover to get back on their feet. The link to their GoFundeMe drive is here.

The mouse has been treated by vets at Red Bank Veterinary Hospital and is being given antibiotics and a twice-daily nebulizer treatment for pneumonia related to smoke inhalation. In an Instagram video posted earlier this week, (see top of this post) Chris Brown appears to be at least back on his hamster wheel.

Chris Brown, before the fire. (Photo courtesyof Liana Lopez.)

The humans who lived at 39 Oakland Street may be facing an even longer and tougher comeback. Lopez tells redbankgreen she and her roommate are sleeping in their friends’ living room while they search for a new home.

“Now I have no home, nowhere stable to sleep, no belongings, and no way to get to work,” Lopez writes in the post. “My dreams of going back to college for nursing school are shattered.”

“I’m scared and exhausted and trying not to fall apart.”

In some small way, she seems to be drawing inspiration from her pet, who she says in the Instgram post is “fighting hard.”

“Stay strong, Chris Brown,” she wrote in a caption of the Instagram video. “I need, you, buddy.”

redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331.

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