RSS 2.0 FeedJanuary 6, 2011, Merrick Life
Dog-gone miracle for NM visitor at Christmas
A barking dog warns of trouble.
A Manhattan woman visiting her 90-year-old mother in North Merrick received the best gift ever at Christmas when a dog’s bark helped save her life.
Layna Christon, a retired teacher living in the Inwood section of Manhattan, was visiting her mother, taking care of her, after her father suffered a serious heart attack and was at the North Shore University intensive care unit recovering.
“I felt overwhelmed, it being Christmas, my mother 90 years old and my father in intensive care, so I went for a walk to get some perspective,” Mrs. Christon told Merrick Life.
She said during her walk she decided to stop into Stop & Shop and get a few things to take home. “I was probably carrying too much,” she said, “and began to feel dizzy on the way home, with some pressure on my chest as well.”
She remembers sitting down at the curb in front of a home on Hamilton Road.
Preparing for Christmas
Meanwhile, the Sena family on Hamilton Road was in the middle of preparation for its traditional Christmas dinner when Jenny, a three-year-old golden retriever, began yelping to go outside around 1 p.m.
“We were all too busy to take Jenny for a walk because we were in the middle of preparation,” remarked Natalie Sena, 23, whose 21-year-old brother Billy owns the dog.
“Instead, I took her out and tied her to a rope we have in the front yard so she could sit and watch everyone go by.”
With Christmas music playing and warmth swirling all around as the family prepared, Billy, who was upstairs, away from the music, heard the dog barking a strange bark he had never heard her bark before. So he went outside to investigate why his dog was barking so strangely.
Once outside Billy saw a woman slumped over on the steps of the house next door, a house that had stood vacant since the previous family moved out.
“I made my way from the curb up to the house to ask if the people in the house could take me home,” said Mrs. Christon. Sweat had begun appearing on her forehead and weakness coursing through her body with an increasingly uncomfortable pressure on her chest, disorientation taking hold.
Billy appeared with Jenny to ask her if she was alright. Mrs. Christon asked Billy if he could drive her home to her house around the block on Winifred Drive, so Billy agreed but went in to get some water for her.
“It’s then that Millie [Sena, Billy’s and Natalie’s mother] came racing out of the house to look at me and ask me to come in. They noticed I was pale and disoriented.”
Billy then carried Mrs. Christon into the house and laid her on the couch.“She was totally pale, cold to the touch and had extremely clammy hands, clearly she was in need of help,” said Billy.
Natalie, studying for her Masters in school administration at the University of Albany, had taken a first-aid course that included CPR, and was not comfortable about taking Mrs. Christon home with the symptoms she was showing.
“The sweating, the disorientation, the paleness, the pressure on the chest, it all didn’t look good,” she told Merrick Life. Instead, she went online to get confirmation of what she thought may be happening, based upon her training, and got the confirmation she was looking for.
“She was so cool and calm,” Mrs. Christon said of Natalie doing her research to find out what was wrong.
“We quickly called the North Bellmore Fire Department and they dispatched an emergency vehicle,” said Natilie. Once NBFD volunteers arrived at 1:25 p.m. she was whisked to Nassau University Medical Center (NUMC), and given medications to stem the pressure.
Different symptoms for women
“I learned in first-aid training that women have different symptoms of heart attacks, they will feel more pressure on the chest, for example, than men might,” Natalie said.
From NUMC, Mrs. Christon was taken to North Shore University Hospital’s cardiac unit. “I was now in the same hospital as my father was in,” remarked Mrs. Christon of the irony of her journey.
It was determined later that evening at North Shore that she had a heart attack, but it wasn’t simply a heart attack brought on by cholesterol blocking her arteries, Mrs. Christon told Merrick Life. “The doctors diagnosed my heart attack as being caused by broken heart syndrome.”
Stress from her father’s heart attack, concern for her mother’s well-being at her age, and the normal stress of Christmas all played significant roles in contributing to her heart attack, she said her doctors told her.
Salt of the earth
The Sena family and Jenny are the “salt of the earth,” Mrs. Christon said of the family that helped save her life. “Millie stayed with me the entire time I was being transported to the hospital.”
“I owe them more than I can ever repay. They were all so brilliant.”
Mrs. Sena told Merrick Life it was a natural thing to do to accompany Mrs. Christon to the hospital. “She didn’t know anyone in the area, who did she know? There was never any question about whether I would go with her or not to be with her, I simply went.”
Mrs. Sena said that she and other family members tried to reach Mrs. Christon’s husband throughout the ordeal. “I promised Layna I would stay with her until her husband came.”
When he did arrive, shortly before Mrs. Christon was taken to North Shore, Millie went home to her Christmas dinner.
Once she returned home the family began their Christmas dinner, and what a dinner it was: At the table they talked joyfully of the Christmas miracle they had just experienced, of saving a woman’s life, thanks to their dog Jenny. “The dog was whining to get out, and was barking and we just didn’t hear her because I play Christmas music loud when I’m preparing,” Mrs. Sena said.
She said she left the house with food all over the counter, and Natalie and her husband then prepared the dinner in her absence.
Jenny took her new-found fame all in stride, even absconding with a few slices of cheese off an unguarded tray, which the family laughed at and felt she roundly deserved this day.
Mrs. Christon remains at home, lucid, communicative, taking medication and resting comfortably as per her doctor’s orders.
