Instinct or Miracle

Instinct or Miracle?



He looked at me. I looked back. It was difficult to tell what he was thinking. His head tilted slightly to the side and so I followed. His expression wasn’t one I remembered. His forehead creased as though trying to tell me something. He guided me to the door; I twisted the handle and then he ran. Ran so fast it was impossible to keep up.

I felt my legs flail around beneath me, my heart pounding in my chest. What was he trying to show me. I tried to keep up as best as I could but starting to lose my breath now. He followed the scent and didn’t have a doubt in his mind where he was taking me. He scrambled through over grown bushes, brambles and briars, as did I. The search continued for what seemed like forever. Then suddenly his legs came to a halt. He stood there for a minute, nose in the air and then slowly cowered back a bit. If I didn’t know better, a look of fear in his eyes.

I attached the lead and let him slowly guide me through the opening in the trees. Then there it was, in front of us. I had to look away and then back again in disbelief. Horror and fear began to overwhelm me and my body became paralysed with the shock. I stood there, stiff, panic stricken. Not a sound around us only my heart throbbing uncontrollably. The pool of blood around the body was increasing; this was recent. The bullet wound to the back of the neck clearly visible but I couldn’t see the man’s face. I still stood frozen, analyzing the fresh crime scene.

Then suddenly a loud bang shattered the silence immediately. There was a terrifying realisation of it being another gunshot. Crunchie bolted with the fear but from somewhere, somehow I found the strength to control him on the lead. I hid behind the tree, terrified of being next. Then as if out of nowhere, a face, a face I recognised walking along the hedgerow, shotgun slung over his shoulder. It was Adrian, my partners “hunting buddy”. But why was he calling my Gary. Suddenly the realisation hit me like a thunder bolt.

I screamed uncontrollably and darted towards the body. I already knew the truth as I recognised the sweatshirt. It was Gary’s. Adrian had heard my blood curdling screams and came rushing to my aid dropping his gun in the grass. I turned over the body and there he lay, listless. As if I hadn’t already known it was him, I began shaking and my body turned numb. My glimmer of hope was lost. That’s when Adrian realised he’d shot his hunting buddy by accident. He became frozen.

“Call an ambulance, call 999... Do you hear me?” I shrieked. Adrian fumbled for his mobile and with shaking hands, dialled the number and called for the ambulance. I could feel a pulse and just prayed for him to live. I lay there with him in my arms, rocking back and fourth, telling him not to die and to fight. Adrian held down pressure on his neck in an attempt to control the bleeding. It seemed to take forever until the ambulance finally arrived.

They whisked him away in minutes knowing the severity of getting him to hospital. Adrian took Crunchie and I went with my Gary. At the hospital, it was terrifying not knowing how he was. He was in surgery for so long and I couldn’t be with him. His family arrived shortly after and we waited in a private room and prayed. Four hours, twenty five minutes later and he was alive. Surgeons had removed the fragments of the bullet but too much damage had been done to the spine to repair it. He would be paralysed from the neck down.

Those words echoed through my head and have haunted me in my nightmares ever since.

I still don’t understand how my dog knew what had happened and where to bring me, whether it was instinct or a miracle I don’t know but I never go by a day without thanking God for taking me to Gary.

Three years later and Gary has had slight twitching in his fingers and toes for the first time.



We live in hope…