A Swedish man may have had his life saved when his dog ate his toes off while he slept. Micke Thomasson’s legs and toes had bed sores as a result of not being able to use them, and his dog Pojken may have saved him from developing highly deadly septic shock.
Micke Thomasson of Sundsvall, Sweden was in a car accident 25 years ago that left him unable to use his legs. He was not unfeeling from paralysis, and for years suffered from painful pressure ulcers, or bed sores, on his calf and foot. Doctors recommended amputation, but he refused, saying that removing a body part “didn’t feel right.”
About a month ago, one sore began to fester and became agonizingly painful. Thomasson used morphine to help him sleep, and was stunned to awake the next morning and find that three of his toes had been chewed off.
“A friend of mine who was staying over came into my bedroom in the morning with a cup of tea. He yelled ‘The dog has eaten up your toes!’,” Thomasson said.
Pojken (“Laddie,” or “The Boy”) was found still sleeping and with blood around his mouth. The small amount of morphine he ingested may have caused him to become too drowsy to finish the job, and he did not eat all of the toes from the infected foot.
Thomasson was rushed to a hospital, where he finally had the amputation he needed. Had the sore become worse, he could have developed septic shock, which causes organ failure and death. The man is very grateful for what Pojken did.
“He’s the reason I want to live. Without him, I would have closed up the business long ago,” he said. “The leg was in poor shape and needed to go, now I feel better.”
This is not the first time a dog has sensed illness and taken drastic measures to protect their human. In 2010, Rockford, Michigan resident Jerry Douthett awoke to find that his dog Kiko had devoured one of his big toes. Douthett had undiagnosed type 2 diabetes, which resulted in an ulcer forming on his toe. Kiko might have just been attracted to the smell, but his action is what led to Douthett to get much-needed treatment.
“He did save my life. Otherwise, I would have never gone in. I wonder how much longer I would have waited.”
