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It’s not your usual story: the dog bites the man, saves his life, and then they die months apart, 11 years later.
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In 2010, West Michigan’s Jerry Douthett was pain-free after a night to celebrate that his wife, Rosee, had become a US citizen.
Douthett went home and passed out only to wake up without his right big toe and his dog Kiko nearby with blood in his mouth.
It turns out that Douthett had an infected sore on his big toe that his registered nurse wife had been pestering him to get examined by a doctor, but he didn’t. Kiko took the matter into her own mouth, biting into it so Douthett had to make the trip to the ER to have his remaining finger removed and treated.
“(While they were there) they also found out that he was diabetic,” Rosee told NBC WOOD affiliate Channel 8.
“His sugar was in the 800s, so it was like if it wasn’t, it could be fatal for him, go into septic shock.
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“(The doctors) announced Kiko as a hero.”
Ten years later, Douthett, complaining of toothache, was diagnosed with mouth and throat cancer, underwent surgery for a golf ball-sized tumor, and underwent four rounds of chemotherapy and 35 radiation treatments. with Kiko and the Lucky couple’s cat at her side the whole time.
He finally died last June at the age of 58, WOOD reports. Then Lucky died in September and Kiko died on October 11, the latter after kidney disease caused heart failure. Both pets were 12 years old.
“Family members say, ‘I think Jerry took the pets because maybe he needs them more in heaven than you do,’” Rosee told WOOD.
Douthett’s wife hosted a benefit concert in Cannonsburg in July called Big Jerry Palooza, which he hopes to do an annual event with a different charity that makes the proceeds each year.
Reference-torontosun.com