For many people with medical conditions, service dogs can be a life-saving resource. These loyal companions are specially trained to recognize when their owner is in trouble and respond, whether it’s fetching medicine or calling for help.
Now, one video is proof of how incredible these service animals can be, showing the moment one dog responds after his owner has a seizure in a grocery store.
Amber Laudicina, from North Carolina, experiences unexpected seizures, due to chemotherapy-related brain damage after battling a brain tumor in 2010, according to WGHP.
Thankfully, she has an 11-month-old service dog named Koda by her side, who she has trained to respond when she is having a seizure.
And one of those moments was caught on video. Amber was shopping at her local Harris and Teeter supermarket. While training her dog in the aisle, Amber begins to exhibit signs of a seizure, including a slight delay in body language and wavering movements.
Koda began to sense before the owner did that something wasn’t right, and barks in alert. As Amber slumps to the ground, Koda stays by her side making sure she doesn’t get harmed.
While Amber was in a “dazed state,” Koda could tell that something wasn’t right. He barked, and thankfully an employee familiar with their situation knew that if Koda barks, something is wrong.
The employee then takes over and calls for emergency help, while Koda patiently stands guard. Amber wrote that while Koda is still in training and his leash interfered with some of his tasks, he still “did very well.”
“He saved my life,” Amber told WGHP. “He prevented me from actually getting hurt and ending up truly in the hospital with a concussion or something worse.”
In the video, Amber wrote that it was his first true emergency situation, and he “did amazing.” “You can train and train for this but you don’t know how far you’ve come until it actually happens,” she wrote.
Amber also praised the actions of the supermarket employees, saying they went above-and-beyond with their response.
“Employees typically don’t sit with me or anything like that. They tend to just stand around and wait for EMTs to arrive,” Amber said.
“[The assistant manager] pulled out all the stops,” Amber told WXII. “For as long as I have had service dogs and as long as I have actually been sick, I have never experienced someone take on a situation like she did.”
According to the outlet, EMS arrived to check on Amber but she did not need to go to the hospital.
Amber has also set up a GoFundMe page to raise money to thank the manager for her life-saving actions.
Watch the video below:
It’s not often a moment like this is caught on video, and it’s remarkable to see Koda respond to his owner’s health crisis in real time like this. It’s a reminder of how viral service dogs can be to people who need them.
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