A koala, Sam was rescued from a bushfire in the forests of Mirboo North in Victoria, Australia, in February 2009. The firestorm killed more than 170 people, and destroyed thousands of homes.
Sam — who turned out to be a female — tried to run from firefighters, but was too exhausted and injured to get very far. Firefighter David Tree stopped to give the burned marsupial some of his water; a fellow firefighter caught a video of the scene on his cell phone. The resulting 2-1/2 minute Youtube video went viral, receiving over a million views, and the video gave a light moment and feeling of deliverance for the tens of thousands of people affected by the summer’s fires.
Sam was recuperating at the Southern Ash Wildlife Shelter when it became clear she was suffering from a common ailment of koalas, ovarian cysts. A veterinarian operated on August 6, but the disease was so advanced that the condition was inoperable, and the decision was made to euthanize her before it got painful. She was estimated to be 4 years old.