Shannon Lorio Owes Her Life To This Dog: How He Saved Her Will Move You To Tears

Shannon Lorio had just had a fight with her husband and was speeding along “NASCAR Road,” the nickname for a twisty rural road in her home state of Georgia.

She admits to going too fast when she hit the second curve and lost control of her car. It fishtailed and violently tossed her through the car’s back window.

She landed down an embankment and was invisible to passing motorists. Badly injured, with what doctors would later determine was a brain bleed, she wasn’t for sure how long she’d been out when she felt a “huge presence” next to her.

As Shannon Lorio dipped in and out of consciousness, HNGN reports, she realized that the presence was a stray dog — the one pictured above — and he was licking her face.

Moments later — Shannon said she had little sense of time at this point — she felt the dog tugging and pulling on her, moving her inch-by-inch back toward the road.

By the time he had pulled her back to visibility, Shannon had moved over 100 feet from where she had landed, none of which was on her own.

At this point, a vehicle approached the unlikely pair. Shannon said that she couldn’t tell if it was a car or a truck in her mental state, but she did have the strength to reach up and wrap her arms around the dog’s neck.

The dog acted as Shannon’s rock as she pulled herself back to her feet and told the motorist to call her husband. Sometime after this, she blacked out again and awoke in the hospital.

Lorio had no idea where the dog had come from — it’s still not clear if he belonged to anyone — and he was gone when she awoke.

However, LittleThings reports that the dog was held by responders and eventually placed in the care of a canine search and rescue trainer, so, Opposing Views adds, he can do “the same thing he did that day for Lorio.”

And fittingly enough, he has a new name: Hero.

Here’s a video clip where Shannon shares her entire story.

What do you think, readers? Are dogs just as capable of feeling deeper emotions as human beings? Sound off in the comments section.

[Image via YouTube screen grab]