A Golden Retriever's Nuzzle: Therapy Dog Credited with Awakening Florida Woman from Coma

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) – In a hospital intensive care unit where the beeping of machines and the hushed prayers of a desperate family had become the unrelenting soundtrack to a life hanging in the balance, a gentle, four-legged visitor named Scrunchie accomplished what a cascade of medical crises had rendered seemingly impossible.

Priscilla Timmons, a 38-year-old woman from Cooper City, had been unresponsive and in a coma for more than 24 hours at Memorial Hospital West, her body failing after a catastrophic medical event.

Then, as the golden retriever therapy dog nuzzled her finger, something remarkable happened: Timmons, who had been unable to open her eyes or communicate, reached out and began to pet the dog, a simple movement that marked the first, incredible step on a miraculous journey back from the brink of death.

This extraordinary moment, a heartwarming intersection of medicine, faith, and the undeniable therapeutic power of animals, was celebrated on Wednesday as Timmons returned to the hospital to be reunited with the extensive medical team that saved her life, and with the furry, 7-year-old companion who is credited with breaking through the darkness of her coma.

Her story is one of astonishing survival against odds that doctors placed at less than 10 percent, a testament to the perseverance of her medical team, the love of her family, and a serendipitous visit from a very special dog.

The ordeal began in March, when Timmons collapsed in the bathroom of her home, having suffered a massive pulmonary embolism—a blood clot in the lungs—an event that Dr. Daniel Mayer, chief of critical care for the Memorial Healthcare System, described as highly unusual for someone so young and, in her case, idiopathic, meaning without a known cause.

The embolism triggered a devastating chain reaction, causing three separate cardiac arrests. The medical team at Memorial fought relentlessly to save her, performing resuscitation for a grueling 41 minutes before her pulse was finally restored.

"Most of the time, ICUs or resuscitation teams don’t persist after several rounds of resuscitation, but we persevered," Dr. Mayer recounted, as reported by the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and published in the Tampa Bay Times. "One or two people said to me, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to stop?’ But something made us continue.”

Even after her heart was restarted, Timmons's trauma was far from over. Her body began to shut down, and she plunged into multi-organ failure, enduring the rigors of dialysis as well as liver and respiratory failure. It was during this critical period, as she lay in a coma in the ICU, that the line between life and death was at its thinnest.

Dr. Mayer emphasized that keeping her alive was a monumental, hospital-wide effort. "It was all hands on deck," he said. "All of our divisions, all of our departments are so intertwined between the ER, the ICU, the IR (interventional radiology) teams, nurses, doctors, we’re very interconnected and so we had this continuous heavy flow of care, which really made a world of difference.”

Inside the coma, Timmons was aware of the fight. She later said she could hear her family beside her, praying and encouraging the medical staff to pray as well. She knew she was fighting for her life but remained trapped, unable to respond. It was her cousin, Kandi Barnwell, who, knowing Timmons's deep love for dogs, requested a visit from one of the hospital's therapy pets.

That decision proved to be pivotal. "I remember, while unable to open my eyes, having a very special visitor, one of the Memorial’s special therapy dogs," Timmons recalled during her emotional reunion at the hospital. "I remember everyone telling me she was there. I then felt her paw and that’s when I was able to move my fingers and lift my hand off of the bed.”

For her family, watching from the bedside, the moment was profoundly moving. "Scrunchie came in, walked to her bedside, and in that moment, for the first time, I got to see Priscilla move her hands and reach out to pet Scrunchie," Barnwell said. "It was such a beautiful thing to witness. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room.”

That simple, responsive touch was the turning point. From that moment, Timmons began her slow but steady recovery. Nearly a month after arriving in an ambulance, she had recovered enough to be discharged. After regaining her strength and mobility, she has now returned to her everyday life, a walking miracle by her own admission.

Returning to the hospital, Timmons expressed her profound gratitude to the dozens of staff members who had gathered to celebrate her recovery. "Yes, I’m a miracle, but it’s because of you. You are all true heroes," she told them.

She spoke of the powerful synergy between her faith and the medical science that saved her. "In my eyes, faith and medicine go hand in hand," she explained. "There’s the science aspect, which consists of studies and medicine... Then there’s the faith aspect, which gives you hope to lean on and helps keep you going. You all gave me medicine to help me, and God gave you faith not to give up. So I would just like to say thank you for not giving up on me.”

For the medical team, Timmons's recovery is a powerful and deeply welcome affirmation of their difficult work. "You know, being an ICU doctor, we deal with a lot of suffering," Dr. Mayer said. "So patients like Priscilla make us want to come back to work, make us want to try harder. It’s just a tremendous feeling seeing Priscilla all right.”

The family also extended their heartfelt thanks to the therapy dog program at Memorial Healthcare System, which also brought another golden retriever, a 5-year-old named Honeycrisp, to visit Timmons during her recovery.

"Thank you for allowing these incredible animals to do what they do best, bring light into the darkest moments," Barnwell said, a sentiment that now echoes with the weight of a life saved, in part, by the gentle nuzzle of a golden retriever named Scrunchie.