Paw-some! Hero cat saves owner’s life by pounding on her chest to wake her up after she suffered heart attack in her sleep
A cat has been hailed a hero after it saved its owner’s life by pounding its paws on her chest to wake her up while she was having a heart attack.
Sam Felstead, 42, from Stapleford, Nottingham, was asleep when she was woken up by her seven-year-old cat Billy at 4.30am.
She then realised she could not move her body and had a shooting pain down her right side, so she called her mother Karen Felstead for help.
Sam Felstead, 42, had her life saved by Billy the cat after he woke her while she was having a heart attack. Billy pounded his paws and meowed in his owner’s ear until she woke up and realised she was in pain. Doctors later told her she had been suffering from a heart attack
Ms Felstead was then rushed to Nottingham City Hospital in the early hours of the morning where doctors told her she had a heart attack in her sleep – she believes it was Billy who saved her life.
She said: ‘I was a bit shocked; I went to bed and I felt fine. I’d even been out with the dogs, and I didn’t feel ill or have any pains whatsoever.
‘Suddenly I woke up in the early hours covered in sweat and couldn’t move. Billy was on my chest and was meowing loudly in my ear hole.
‘He doesn’t do that normally, he sleeps all day and all night, that’s his life. He wouldn’t leave me.’
Ms Felstead, who is a receptionist at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham, explained that Billy is not a very social cat and usually ‘he likes to be alone’.
Cat behaviour experts say Billy may have woken his owner after he picked up on physiological changes in her body
She added: ‘He’s never woken me up in the night before, he never bothers you. He doesn’t wake you for food.
‘Mum was quite shocked. I told her he woke me up and she was even more shocked. You don’t hear about that with cats.
‘I’m just glad he woke me up. Who knows if I would have got up without them, it could’ve been worse for me.’
After Ms Felstead had been woken by her furry companion, her mother rang 999 but they were told it would take two-hours to get an ambulance, so the pair drove to the hospital.
The doctors found that one of the receptionist’s arteries was blocked which had caused the heart attack.
Billy the cat has been hailed a hero after he saved his owners life. The normally anti-social cat meowed loudly in Ms Felstead’s ear to wake her up
She then spent three days in hospital before she was reunited with her beloved Billy.
Ms Felstead said: ‘When I came home at first, he wasn’t bothered, he completely ignored me.
‘He’s just the same now, I just try to give him a bit more love.
‘I’m grateful towards him as I didn’t know if I’d have woken up – my alarm wasn’t for another two hours so who knows if I would have woken up.’
She added: ‘The doctors said it was a good job I got to hospital in time. I do think he saved my life and so does everybody else around me.’
Cat behaviour expert Lucy Hoile said that Billy may have picked up on the physiological changes in his owner.
She said: ‘It could be that the fact he jumped on her and was meowing was a sign of his anxiety.
‘I do believe he probably did save her life, because that’s what enabled her to get medical help, but I wouldn’t go down the route of saying he did it on purpose.
‘It was him reacting to the situation.’
