Sydney Page
Keith Johnson was at his cabin in Stevens County, Washington, when his continuous glucose monitor began beeping at about 5.30am.
Johnson, a diabetic, went downstairs to get some orange juice. Before he could pour himself a glass, his 13-year-old rescue dog, Gita, stood by the front door, anxious to go outside.
“She wanted to go out, so rather than go get the orange juice first, I opened the front door and walked out a few steps,” said Johnson, 84. “It was pitch black.”
As Johnson ‒ who lives in Spokane but enjoys spending weekends at his cabin ‒ turned to go back inside, “I suddenly got dizzy and disoriented and fell,” he said.
Reeling in pain, he tried to crawl several times but collapsed. He lay on the ground helplessly as the sun came up, with Gita by his side.
“She came up very close to me and lay down, and I cuddled with her,” Johnson said. After some time had passed, “I asked her if she would go get help, thinking I was just indulging myself”.
But Gita took his command. She ran off into the wilderness.
Deputy Colton Wright of the Steven’s County Sheriff’s Office happened to be patrolling the wooded area that morning, September 25, when he spotted Gita sitting beside the highway, a couple of hundred metres from Johnson’s hidden driveway entrance. It was about 11.40am, and there were no people nearby.
He said whenever he saw a dog wandering without a person, he tried to find their owner or encouraged them to go home. “I just followed my normal instinct.”
Wright tried to get Gita to go inside his car in an effort to track down her owner, but she refused. Her collar carried no information. So he snapped a photo of the dog and asked people within about 2km if they knew who she belonged to. No one did.
The officer “just didn’t feel right” about leaving her at the spot where she was sitting in the centre of the road. “She stood up and looked at me and was like, ‘Hey, come this way’.”
Wright followed Gita directly to her owner.
“The driveway is close nearly 500m long, and it’s very hidden and wooded,” said Wright, adding that if Gita had not taken him there, he wouldn’t have seen it.
Wright saw Johnson lying on the ground outside his cabin, calling for help.
“Boy, am I happy to see you,” Johnson told the officer. At that point, he had been there for nearly seven hours.
Wright said to Johnson: “Your dog is a hero. She saved your life today.”
“Had she gotten in my truck, I would have never found him,” said Wright, who has three dogs of his own. “With 100% certainty, she knew what she was doing.”
Wright called an ambulance and tried to make Johnson comfortable while they waited. He told him what his dog had done.
“I don’t know that we would have ever found him,” said Wright, adding that the area has many predatory animals, including wolves, cougars and bears. “Being a dog lover, that dog is a hero.”
Johnson agreed.
“I was overcome with emotion, as I am every time I think about it,” Johnson said between tears. “She clearly was down there asking for help.”
Johnson believes his story - which was first reported by KREM, a TV station in Spokane - would have been different had Gita not gotten the officer’s attention.
“Who knows how long I could have lasted,” Johnson said.
While Johnson, who lives alone with Gita, was stunned that her efforts worked, he said he wasn’t surprised that she tried to save him.
“She is very smart,” he said, adding that he also is grateful to Wright.
“I am eternally indebted to Officer Wright,” Johnson said. “He persisted, he acted appropriately and he calmed me. My life was saved by a combination of Gita and Officer Wright.”
Wright said he’s glad he trusted Gita to guide him.
“Everything fell right into place,” he said. “I’ve got a new friend. Keith and I are talking pretty much daily. We have plans for dinner when he gets back to 100% health.”
Johnson and his late wife, Janet, got Gita, a mixed breed, from a shelter when she was a puppy in 2011.
Since his wife died five years ago, Johnson and Gita have been on their own. They do everything together.
“She is a wonderful companion,” said Johnson, adding that he had retired after working as a case officer for the Central Intelligence Agency for 25 years.
While Johnson was in hospital, where he underwent surgery for a broken hip, one of the emergency team that took him to hospital looked after Gita.
Gita visits him in the rehabilitation facility where he is working towards returning home to be with his beloved companion.
Gita visits him, which brings him immense comfort.