Tommy usually lets Hank Ford sleep in, but not on this day. On this day, something was wrong. Very wrong.
The loyal Labrador, who has been by Hank’s side since he was a pup, started nudging his owner urgently. Then came the pawing. Then the jumping.
“I figured the dog needed to go outside a little earlier than normal,” said Hank, a 54-year-old Army veteran from Fort Lufton, Colorado. But when he stood up, he was light-headed, woozy, and disoriented. He opened the door, but Tommy didn’t move. He just stared.
Concerned now, Hank checked his vitals. His pulse was a staggering 171 beats per minute.
Hank had served more than 20 years in the military, Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Bosnia, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and spent years working in a federal penitentiary afterward. He knew when something felt wrong.
He called his local VA hospital, but they brushed off his vitals, suggesting he’d used the machine wrong. Still, Hank trusted Tommy. He drove himself to the ER.
“They were freaking out about it,” Hank recalled. “It was good that Tommy woke me up.”
Doctors confirmed it was AFib, an irregular heartbeat that can cause strokes, or worse.
“More than likely, it would have been a stroke and it would have been a (big) one,” Hank said. “Something about the way he woke me up: He hasn’t done it before and he hasn’t done it since.”
But this wasn’t the first time Tommy saved Hank’s life.
Years ago, Hank was in a dark place. Decades of high-stress service had left him battling PTSD. He barely left the house. His doctors encouraged him to get a service dog, and through the Wounded Warrior Project and Dogs Inc, Tommy came into his life.
And everything changed.
“We bonded fast,” Hank said. “I’ve had some good connections with dogs, but nothing like what we have… If you stress out, he’ll come out and look at you and put his chin on you, like, ‘Hey, are you okay?’ It was a calming presence.”
Tommy became more than a service dog. He became Hank’s healer, protector, and best friend.
And when Hank was stabilized in the hospital after that terrifying AFib episode, his wife brought Tommy to visit. The loyal Lab climbed right onto the bed and laid across Hank’s chest, just inches away from the heart he had helped save.
“I knew dogs were man’s best friend for a reason,” Hank said.
“He takes it above and beyond that.”
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