Amber Laudicina of Winston-Salem has a rare nervous system disorder that required her to have a service dog to assist her. Since 2014, her service dog Koda has been by her side and her recent seizure has reinforced the importance of Koda in her life all the more.
Laudicina, is also a regular on Tiktok, wherein she shares her training videos with Koda. “Koda is life-changing for me,” she says. After her diagnosis with dysautonomia, she was declared disabled which necessitated her to avail of the service of Koda and they have been inseparable since.
Recently, Koda and Amber went to a departmental store, to record a public access training video to post on TikTok and as they were recording, she began to experience a slight delay in her movements.
“I start losing my ability to speak. I’m starting to daze off, I’m moving very slowly and I actually have no feeling that this is gonna happen,” Laudicina recalls.
In the video, Koda could be seen barking as he picked up on the seizure which was a surprise because he was not trained to detect it. The barks then alerted the store’s manager, who was able to intervene on time.
Laudicina said that Koda was not a seizure-alert dog and although they could be trained on how to respond to a seizure which is what she has been doing since she got Koda. She had no idea that he was able to detect them.
Koda’s surprise act saved Laudicina’s life. The manager of the store sat by her side, stroking her head and shoulders, and talked to her calmly before emergency services arrived.
Laudicina expressed her gratitude to the store manager who took notice of the barks and swooped in to take care of her and of course Koda, whose heroic act was critical in helping her get to live another day.
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