Tom Santiago, of Penn Hills, gave his dog, Alvie, the unofficial title of "rescue dog" earlier this month.

Santiago said his three-year-old soft-coated Wheaten terrier deserved the name after alerting his owner of an elderly neighbor that had fallen in her driveway.

Santiago said he put Alvie outside at about 1 p.m. Tuesday, July 1.

Alvie is usually quiet, Santiago said, but the dog was in the backyard barking with a sense of urgency that made the dog's owner realize something was wrong.

When Santiago finally came outside to see what was wrong, he noticed Ursula Salomon, 86, who had fallen in her driveway two doors down, about 150 feet away.

After walking her dog, Star, earlier that morning, Salomon said she was picking up branches that had fallen on her driveway from a berry tree in her yard.

"The berries were slippy," she said. "I went to throw the branches and went sailing."

The elderly woman said she has two "bionic" knees, which she can't kneel on, but she tried to stand up and fell a second time.

When Alvie and Santiago's other dog, Dolly, alerted Santiago, Salomon was faintly calling for help and was only slightly visible through Santiago's fence and a hedge lining the driveway behind Salomon's house.

"You could barely hear her, but apparently my dog did," he said.

Later, Santiago found out Salomon had fallen around 10 a.m. and had been trying to call for help for three hours.

"She didn't have the strength to crawl anywhere," he said.

Santiago promptly called the ambulance and Salomon was taken to the hospital.

The neighbor found out later that Salomon was treated for a compound fracture in her ankle. He is grateful Alvie alerted him of accident.

"She could have been laying there for three or four more hours until someone found her," he said.

After a week's stay in the hospital, Salomon's ankle is in a cast and she is recovering for six weeks at her sister-in-law's home, also in Penn Hills.

The senior citizen said she is hopeful that her injury will heal soon.

"I'm not used to being inactive," she said. "I do my own work and to be sitting here having someone wait on me is driving me out of my mind."

Santiago said Alvie the "rescue dog" was rewarded with an afternoon in the Frick Park dog park, which he loves to visit.

Salomon had other plans for a reward.

"I want to kiss that dog," she said.