A dog owner says she ended up on life support after her playful pooch accidentally headbutted her while doing 'zoomies'.
Erin Stevenson had been watching her Staffordshire bull terrier Skyy playing in the garden when she hurtled towards her and accidentally headbutted her in the chin.
The 41-year-old says her neck started to ache the next day but she assumed she had a sore throat and planned to see a doctor.
When the speech therapist woke up at 3am on the third day with a swollen neck and unable to swallow, she went to the hospital where she assumed she'd be given antibiotics and sent home.
A CT scan revealed that two of Erin's molars had been cracked by the impact and she'd developed an infection causing extreme swelling and doctors worried that her airways could close.
Sign up to our TeamDogs newsletter for your weekly dose of dog news, pictures and stories.
Medics decided to put Erin to sleep on life support with a breathing tube for a week as they drained the infection out of her neck - while five-year-old Skyy was looked after at home unaware of the trouble she'd caused.
Now, four months on from the incident, Erin says the 'nightmare' isn't over as she is still not able to open her mouth up fully.
Erin, from Chicago, Illionois, US, said: "Skyy's done plenty in her day but nothing quite like this. She's trouble and she keeps us all on our toes. She loves being around people.
"She just doesn't know how to control her excitement. She runs and jumps and gets herself into all sorts of trouble. I wouldn't change her.
"She was running around doing zoomies back and forth in the yard. She came towards me and I didn't think anything of it so I leant forward and she jumped and headbutted me straight under the jaw.
"It hurt but I didn't think much of it, I just thought it was from the impact. Two days later, my throat started to hurt. I thought it was strep throat. I was planning on going to see a doctor but I woke up at around 3am and I couldn't swallow.
"I woke my husband and said I was going to the emergency room to get antibiotics for strep throat.
"There was significant swelling on one side of my face. I had a CT scan, antibiotics and steroids. They didn't know what it was. They thought maybe it was a haematoma or a broken jaw.
"They were worried that if the swelling didn't go down then my airways would close. I was put to sleep and a tube inserted to breathe for me."
Erin text husband, Scott, 46, to tell him she loved him before she was whisked off to intensive care.
Erin said: "I text my husband saying he might want to go down to the hospital and I might not be awake when he got there. I told him to tell my family I love them. It was worse for him than for me.
"I was incubated and put on life support. Unbeknown to me, Skyy had cracked two of my molars and I'd developed an abscess which had caused the swelling.
"Doctors removed two of my teeth and put a drain in my neck to drain out the infection. They left me on life support to make sure there were no secondary infections but I did develop a second one which was drained and finally resolved the problem.
"Skyy had no idea the trouble she'd caused but my husband did say she knew something was going on.
"The one lingering injury I have is that now I can only open my mouth to a certain point which is a bit of a nightmare."
Erin says this isn't the first time her pets have caused trouble as Skyy once bit through the wall and ended up spending the day with the neighbours until she got home from work.
Erin said: "I once got call from the neighbour saying don't worry but they had Skyy which really confused me because when I left her, she was in a crate.
"When I got home, they said she'd escaped the crate and bitten through the wall. They are saints, my husband said he was surprised they didn't kill her.
"People said if they didn't know me then they wouldn't believe this had happened."
Do you have a dog story to sell? Email paige.freshwater@reachplc.com.
