By Dennis Shaughnessey
Lowell Sun
GROTON, Mass. — Chloe has no idea what she did.
When her owner, Tracy Colby, passed out on the living-room floor in her home on McCarthy Drive last Friday morning, the 6-year-old German shepherd sprang into action.
“She started licking my face and pulling me toward the front door,” said Colby, a 39-year-old diabetic, whose blood-sugar level was a meager 29 before she collapsed.
Her husband, Kevin, was at work. Her 16-year-old daughter, Morgan, was in school. But Chloe was there. The dog’s instincts kicked in while Colby struggled to maintain consciousness on the floor. Colby, who was diagnosed with the disease at age 11 and is legally blind, managed to open the front door of her duplex. She yelled for help but nobody responded. Chloe took over and began howling incessantly through the screen door. The street was empty.
“I was on the floor for about three hours,” Colby recalled. “I kept going in and out (of consciousness) but I knew where I was and I knew Chloe was there. She kept nudging me under my chin with her nose. She kept licking
my face. She pulled at my shoulders. She pulled at my legs. I think she wanted me to stand up, but I couldn’t.”
Colby’s cell phone rang. Then stopped. Reaching up to the kitchen counter, just a few feet from the living room, she grabbed at something, hoping it was her phone. It was a hammer used the night before for a small fix-it job.
“The hammer fell off the counter and it me in the back of the head,” Colby said, slightly embarrassed. “I remembered that the phone was on the kitchen table so I dragged myself over.”
She pulled at a chair leg, causing the tall stool to come crashing down on her.
“She pulled the chair off me and started licking me again,” Colby said of her dog.
After maneuvering the phone off the table, Colby began punching in numbers, trying to dial 911.
“We looked at the phone later, and there were all kinds of numbers dialed in,” said Kevin. “But somehow, she was able to pull it together enough to hit 911.”
Paramedics soon rushed through the door. Chloe went on the defensive, barking frantically and threateningly.
“I kept telling them, ‘She doesn’t bite. She’s just afraid.’ But I was barely conscious and I don’t even know if I was saying it out loud,” Colby said.
Groton Fire Chief Joseph Bosselait confirmed that emergency crews from Groton and Townsend responded to the home.
“It’s my understanding that the dog was initially protective, but when she realized that the medics were there to help, she just laid next to the woman and began lapping at her face,” Bosselait said. “We don’t know what happened before we got there, but it’s obvious that the dog was trying to protect her master.”
As they worked to stabilize Colby, Chloe laid across her chest. Kevin, a construction worker, got news of the emergency while working on a roof. His wife had been taken to Nashoba Valley Medical Center in Ayer. He stopped by the house on his way to the hospital.
“Chloe was just lying there by the door,” he said. “She’s usually very hyper and jumps up and runs around when I come home, but she was just lying there with her paws over her face.”
Colby returned home later that evening, exhausted and sporting a bump on the back of her head from the hammer. Her blouse was torn, a result of Chloe’s efforts to keep her revived. She had a screaming headache and went to lie down on her bed.
“As soon as I closed my eyes, Chloe was there, her nose under my chin, nudging me to keep me awake,” Colby said.