Dog saves owner's life during seizures

This recent bitter cold weather could have killed a Toledo woman, but she had a guardian angel on four legs. Her dog saved her life.

Sam Good has something called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy that affects the nerves and muscles in her body. It sparks painful seizures through her body. "It's like Restless Legs Syndrome times 100 and it's through your spine," said Good.

Good told us she was getting ready for bed last week with nothing more than her pajamas on and decided to turn out the lights on her unheated back porch. She said the cold ignited another seizure and she fell onto her loveseat. "I was in a ball and I got in a ball because I knew I was going to freeze," Good explained. "I thought I was going to freeze to death because I couldn't get words out," she added.

Temperatures at the time were in the teens.

In the seat, in intense pain, Good says she was finally able to call out Maddie's name quietly by human standards, but plenty-loud for a dog. "She keeps picking my arm up and picking my arm up," said Good while re-enacting the event. "And I'm like, 'Maddie, I can't.'"

"And she just put her back under my belly and kept lifting and lifting," demonstrated Good. At that point, Good says she could barely get her arms around the dog's neck. "She had to keep lifting me onto her back to get the rest of me because I was numb... my spine... I didn't feel anything."
The 104-pound Golden Retriever carried Good on her back, dragging Good to her bed inside. Good was still hurting but was warm and eventually the seizures subsided. If it wasn't for Maddie's rescue? "I'd been froze," Good pointedly told us.

She also said Maddie isn't just her best friend, "she's the best dog ever."