When a man woke up with his toe chewed “to the bone” by his puppy, he never expected what his hospital scans would reveal.
When David Lindsay, a 64-year-old retired builder from Cambridge, England, was jolted from his seemingly peaceful sleep by his wife’s screams, he likely never imagined he would eventually be thankful for the nightmare he had awakened to find. Much to David’s shock, his right big toe had been reduced to a gruesome and bloody hunk of flesh while he slept on the sofa.
Making matters worse, it would appear that David’s beloved but hungry seven-month-old bulldog, Harley, was the culprit behind the horrific scene that was unfolding and the grisly injury he had sustained during his slumber.
“I was asleep on the couch when my wife walked in and shouted, ‘Dave, the puppy’s chewing your toe!'” he explained, recalling his wife urgently yelling as he slept on the sofa.
Indeed, the ravenous puppy had gnawed David’s toe while the man slept, even fracturing the bone and leaving the toenail barely hanging on by a thread, the Mirror reported. David’s wife quickly wrapped the wound and rushed David to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambs, but perhaps more shocking than the horrifying scene to which David awoke was the fact that it likely saved his life.
Because of the injury, David obviously needed medical attention, and it’s a good thing he did. The medical care following the grisly accident turned out to be a potential life-saver when medical examinations revealed that David had lost feeling in his feet due to two blocked arteries in his legs — which explains why his hungry pup didn’t wake him when the animal made a snack out of David’s big toe.
“My puppy had near enough chewed my big toe off!” David explained. “It chewed down to my bone and had cracked it. But because of all this, I discovered that my foot is completely numb, I can’t feel anything.”
While it’s quite unusual to be thankful that your pet literally tried to eat you alive, it was thanks to the severe mauling his toe endured that David discovered he couldn’t feel his foot. Then, during CT scans for the fractured toe, the doctors made the startling discovery that he had two blocked arteries, which they explained could put his whole leg in danger of amputation if the blood supply wasn’t restored.
David, a diabetic, was put on intravenous antibiotics to stop an infection, caused by the dog bite, from spreading to his bone. Thanks to the bulldog’s accidental and unexpected intervention, he was also assessed for stents to open up the arteries, allowing the blood flow to return to his leg.
With the naughty pup inadvertently saving his life, the father of five daughters and grandfather of 11 children said he had no intention of getting rid of the carnivorous canine. Instead, David Lindsay expressed his gratitude as his dog was hailed an unlikely hero, whose appetite may have saved his master’s life.
“You’ve got to laugh about it,” David said. “He’s done me a favor by chewing up my toe,” he added, fondly speaking of Harley. “I’ll be keeping the dog. I’ll try to keep my toe too, but if not, I told the doctor to cut it off and I can take it home for him!”
I’ve never been a fan of the phrase, “Everything happens for a reason,” but this is one situation where it seemingly fits. Of course, that reason is simply that the dog was hungry and decided to seize an unlikely opportunity to eat some fresh meat. If Harley proved anything, it’s that given the chance, he was willing to make David his dinner. Luckily, David’s wife intervened before the dog got a belly full, so perhaps David Lindsay should be singing her praises as well.
