Woman Is Stuck In Car Crash — Shortly Thereafter Heroic Stray Dog Rescues And Drags Her To Safety

Nov 21, 2020 by apost team

Hero is a dog that has quite the story. He is a German Shepherd who would often wander out of his yard in Georgia all the way back in 2007. He escaped from his backyard so often that his original owners decided to give him up to the Thomasville-Thomas County Humane Society. But Hero's penchant for exploring the outside world ended up saving someone's life. One day in 2007, southwest Georgia resident Shannon Lorio was taking a drive after having a fight with her husband when everything went wrong.

Her car spun out of control as she was going around a sharp turn, and she was ejected out the back window of the car, as she explains in the video below. She found herself in a very precarious position and wondered if anyone was going to find her. As she lay there, unable to move, she saw a shadow moving towards her in the distance.

After momentarily losing consciousness, she woke up and realized that a dog was standing over her.
“I don’t know when I came to, but when I did come to, I felt his huge presence. I could feel his breath. The dog […] I don’t know how he came across me, but I thank God that he did," Lorio says in the video below.

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In another interview, she adds, "I was bleeding from my face and my nose."

“All of a sudden, I felt a presence — a really huge presence," Lorio said. He was straddling me. I have watched too many horror movies about werewolves and vampires. I thought he was going to eat me.” Of course, Hero didn't eat Lorio; he saved her life. And that's when Hero got his name.

Hero quickly grabbed her by her jacket and dragged her one hundred feet to the edge of a nearby road, according to Lorio's statement in the below video. This feat alone is pretty incredible, as dragging a person that is unconscious is incredibly difficult, even when you are dealing with a relatively small person. Lorio got lucky and a car pulled up right when she was dragged up by the road. She was able to tell the motorist to call an ambulance right before she once again lost consciousness. 

When she woke up, the doctor told Lorio that she had an intracranial brain hemorrhage, according to Lorio's re-telling of the story. According to The Cleveland Clinic, an intracranial brain hemorrhage, perhaps more commonly known as a brain bleed, occurs when there is bleeding between the brain tissue and skull and/or between the tissue itself. Not only can this cause permanent brain damage, but it is also life-threatening. Luckily, however, Lorio did not even have to have surgery. Similar to how she happened to be rescued, Lorio miraculously made a full recovery. But things could have gone very badly if it weren't for the brave actions of this German shepherd.

"This dog, he did everything," Lorio says in the below video interview. "And he's an amazing animal, he really is. I honestly believe in my heart that if he hadn't [been there], I probably wouldn't be here today. I really wouldn't. I think I honestly — I would have died."

Shortly after the incident, NBC News reports that Hero's owners decided to part ways with their amazing dog because he kept escaping from their yard. But this story has a happy ending. According to the Heroes Among Us documentary below, canine search and rescue trainer Heidy Drawdy adopted Hero.

"We're training him for wilderness right now, and he's doing really, really well," Drawdy says in the below video. "As he found Shannon, he loves to run the woods and to find anybody we place in the woods. He's so excited."

Drawdy added that her ultimate goal is to train Hero to be an urban search and rescue dog. In that role, Hero would go into collapsed buildings — in the wake of natural disasters, for example — and find survivors. And Hero certainly seems to be cut out for the job given that he saved Lorio's life without any training.

“If he ever needs anything, I’ll be there,” Lorio told NBC News.

You can watch the full story in the video below:

Lorio feels he is now doing exactly what he was made to do on this earth, which is a truly heartwarming ending to a story that could have ended tragically. What do you think about this dog's heroic actions? Pass this story along to someone who needs some inspiration in their life today!