‘He’s done me a favour by chewing my toe!’
A retired builder has told how his bulldog puppy chewing his big toe “to the bone” ended up saving his life.
David Lindsay, 64, was sleeping on the sofa at home when he was woken by his wife’s horrified scream.
She had walked into the room to see his right big toe had been chewed to a bloody stump by their bulldog puppy Harley.
The bone in his toe had been fractured by the seven month old dog and his toe nail left hanging off.
However the horror incident ended up being a potential life-saver, alerting doctors to the fact the dad-of-five had no feeling in his right foot.
Medics discovered this was due to two blocked arteries in his legs.
David, from Cambridge, Cambs, who suffers from diabetes, said: “I was asleep on the couch when my wife walked in and shouted, ‘Dave, the puppy’s chewing your toe!’
“My puppy had near enough chewed my big toe off! It chewed down to the bone and cracked it.
“But because of all this, I discovered that my foot is completely numb, I can’t feel anything.”
His wife wrapped up his toe and rushed him to Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, where he’s been for nine days.
Dave has been put on intravenous antibiotics to stop the infection, caused by the dog bite, from spreading to his bone.
Thanks to the severe mauling his toe endured, Dave discovered he couldn’t feel his foot.
During CT scans for the fractured toe, the doctors discovered not one, but two blocked arteries, putting his whole leg at risk of amputation if the blood supply wasn’t returned.
Thanks to Harley, Dave is now being assessed for stents which would open up the arteries and allow the blood flow to return to his leg.
And he said he has no plans to get rid of the life-saving bulldog, having lost his two large Neapolitan Mastiff dogs last year.
Dave, who hadn’t owned a bulldog before now, said: “You’ve got to laugh about it. He’s done me a favour by chewing my toe.
“So I’m waiting to find out if they can put stents in. I’ll be keeping the dog.
“I’ll try to keep my toe too, but if not I told the doctor to cut it off and I can take it home for him!”
David hopes to go home to his wife and cheeky bulldog by the end of the week.
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